Country Overview
Key Facts
Number of Employees: Approximately 3,000
Main Brands:
Marlboro, L&M, Red & White
Welcome to Philip Morris Polska. We are the leading tobacco company in Poland, manufacturing three of the ten best-selling cigarette brands in the country. The history of Philip Morris International’s (PMI) brands began in 1973 when PMI signed a licensing agreement with Zakłady Przemysłu Tytoniowego w Krakowie (ZPTK) to produce Marlboro under license. In 1996, PMI acquired shares of ZPTK and the company was renamed Philip Morris Polska in 1998.
Today we employ around 3,000 people throughout Poland, including over 1,100 at our production facility in Kraków. The history of the manufacturing plant in Kraków dates back to 1876. We have invested $500 million in improvements over the past several years and now have one of the most modern factories in Europe.
In 2005, PMI’s Service Center Europe, providing centralized Finance, Human Resources and Information Services, was established in Kraków. The Service Center provides support, for approximately 14,000 PMI employees across 25 European countries.
Social responsibility is important to Philip Morris Polska. Since 1998, we are a partner of the STOP18! Program aimed at preventing minors from smoking. We also support charitable contributions initiatives to stop domestic violence and various projects to help disabled people.
Smoking and Health
Tobacco products, including cigarettes, are dangerous and addictive. There is overwhelming medical and scientific evidence that smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and other serious diseases.
Addiction
All tobacco products are addictive. It can be very difficult to quit smoking, but this should not deter smokers who want to quit from trying to do so.
Secondhand Smoke
Public health officials have concluded that secondhand smoke from cigarettes causes serious diseases in non-smokers, including lung cancer and heart disease. We believe the public health conclusions on secondhand smoke are sufficient to support smoking restrictions in public places.
Effective Regulation
Philip Morris International (PMI) supports comprehensive regulation of tobacco products based on the principle of harm reduction.
To be effective, tobacco regulatory policy must be evidence-based, apply to all tobacco products, and should take into account the views of all legitimate stakeholders including public health authorities, government finance authorities, tobacco manufacturers, and other members of the tobacco supply chain. Regulatory policy must consider the potential to trigger adverse consequences which undermine public health objectives, such as increasing the demand for illicit cigarettes. While we support comprehensive, effective tobacco regulation, we do not support regulation that prevents adults from buying and using tobacco products or that imposes unnecessary impediments to the operation of the legitimate tobacco market. In that regard, we oppose measures such as plain packaging, point of sale display bans, total bans on communications to adult consumers, and bans on the use of all ingredients in tobacco products.