Cigarette making still going strong in South Richmond

When Philip Morris USA opened its cigarette manufacturing plant in South Richmond in 1973, the factory could produce about 200 million cigarettes per day.
Now, 40 years later, the plant just off Interstate 95 on Commerce Road can produce about three times that much — around 600 million cigarettes per day.

Half of all the cigarettes consumed in the U.S. are made at the nearly 2 million-square-foot manufacturing center. It is Philip Morris’ only plant.
The company, a subsidiary of Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc., has made more than $200 million in investments to the local plant since closing its only other factory in Cabarrus County, N.C., in 2009 and consolidating production here.
Those investments, and the company’s market dominance, mean the operations are still going strong, even with significant changes in the tobacco industry, including a slow but steady decline in U.S. cigarette consumption, a growing number of laws against public smoking, and FDA regulation of tobacco products.
“When you look back through history and the challenges that we face, I think the people of Philip Morris USA have always risen to those challenges and been successful,” said Billy Gifford, the company’s president and CEO since 2010.
Gifford, a Hanover County native who joined the company in 1994, said Philip Morris is always looking for ways to innovate and improve its efficiency.
The company’s investments in the plant included upgrades to install more energy-efficient lighting; improvements to the heating, ventilation and air condition system; and beautification work, Gifford said Thursday during an interview at the factory.
The factory also is hiring this year, mostly to replace retiring workers. Company officials did not provide a specific number of new hires.
Automation means the plant can produce more now with fewer workers than it used to.
Philip Morris employs about 2,000 in the region, with most of those working at the plant, officials said Thursday. Altria’s total local full-time equivalent workforce, which includes Philip Morris, is 3,900 as of the beginning of this year.
In 1993, Philip Morris had 10,500 FTE workers locally.
A similar trend has affected employment across the U.S. manufacturing industry.
Gifford said it is important not to get “hung up” on the significance of automation.
“It is not machines that make products. It is really the people running the machines that make the products,” he said. “So it still comes back to the individuals we have here on a day-in and day-out basis, and the passion and commitment they bring to what they do every day.”
Company officials invited some local media representatives for a rare visit to the plant because of its 40th anniversary. The factory is normally off limits for public tours, and photography inside the plant is restricted.
All of the cigarettes produced at the plant — whether Marlboro or Parliament or Merit or one of the company’s 176 SKUs — are made in a series of production bays in the core of the factory, a landscape dominated by a network of huge cigarette-making and packaging machines.
The upgrades to the plant also included installing more “super high-speed” cigarette production machines, some of which were moved from the North Carolina plant that was closed.