Cigar Sense and CST Consulting Collaboration

Franca Comparetto, co-founder of Cigar Sense Inc. and tobacco veteran Claudio Sgroi, Master Blender and founder of CST Consulting, announced a collaboration to provide a unique service that will assist manufacturers in optimizing their resources for the launch of new successful or better performing blends.

The innovative service consists of a powerful synergy between Cigar Sense’s ability to analyze how consumers will appreciate a given cigar in a specific geographic region, which has helped cigar companies confidently fast-track successful go-to-market strategies, and Claudio Sgroi’s enormous knowledge in tobacco and blending, which has been vital for the production of numerous memorable blends (e.g. Tierra Volcan, Liga Maestro, Casa Favilli, Cosecha “Vintage” Line and Cinque Terre among others), and will provide the technical support related to tobacco.

“I am very excited by our partnership with Claudio, as his tremendous field knowledge in tobacco and blending complements our rigorous analytical method extremely well. We can’t wait to transfer the benefits of these combined skill sets to cigar companies, especially as today more consumers are increasingly selective in their buying decisions”, said Franca Comparetto.

“Franca built something truly unique that can be integrated in the blending room of every cigar factory. I was shocked when I saw for the first time the amount of data that Cigar Sense collected and now can be used to create target blends based on smokers’ preferences. I’m honored to be part of this project that, in my opinion is a great tool for the new generation of blends”, said Claudio Sgroi.

The extensive databases of cigar profiles on one hand, and detailed consumer preferences on the other, will be the starting point for the analyses of consumer response, of what is working and of predictions of what will work best. This collaboration offers a revolutionary and agile way to design blends and rapidly test and evolve them, which is currently a highly risky and costly process for cigar companies. Combining tobacco expertise with sensory and data expertise, while continuing to ensure products’ differentiation, will enable a unique depth of understanding how consumers are likely to respond to blends.

“We’re delighted by the evidence that our predictive analytics are a reliable data-driven resource to aid business decisions.  We’ve always believed that causality is key to predicting consumer responses accurately and look forward to working with Claudio to make even more actionable consumer insights available to the industry”, said David Wells, co-founder and CTO of Cigar Sense.