Velo Plus synthetic nicotine roll-out leads to new manufacturing and sales jobs in the Triad
As Winston-Salem-based Reynolds American marks its 150th anniversary this year, it plans to add 300 jobs in 2025, driven mainly by expanding its smokeless nicotine product portfolio, the company says.
Reynolds, the U.S. unit of British American Tobacco and descendant of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, began production of its Velo Plus oral smokeless nicotine pouch last fall in its Reynolds Operations Center in Tobaccoville, a community straddling the Forsyth-Stokes county line north of Winston-Salem.
According to a statement Friday from Borgia Walker, senior vice president for human resources and inclusion at Reynolds American, the company hired for more than 500 jobs in 2024, the majority of which were directly related to the expanding smokeless lines, mainly Velo Plus, and “aligning our sales force to be even more competitive in the market.”
“In 2025, we intend to add an additional 300 positions, a combination of local manufacturing and national trade marketing roles,” Borgia added. The majority of the new jobs are in Triad manufacturing, according to the company.
The Tobaccoville facility is the largest in BAT Group worldwide at two million square feet and is capable of multi-category manufacturing. The addition did not displace production of cigarettes or other tobacco products, according to the company.
Velo Plus is a pouch containing synthetic nicotine held in the user's mouth. It’s part of the Modoral operating company. Others are Reynolds Tobacco, R.J. Reynolds Vapor, Santa Fe Natural, and American Snuff Co.
The synthetic nicotine used in the newly launched Velo Plus nicotine pouches has the same pharmacological profile as tobacco-derived nicotine, according to the company.
While Reynolds still makes cigarettes and oral tobacco products, it says the nicotine pouch category is the fastest-growing product segment among adult U.S. nicotine consumers. Smokeless accounted for 18.9% of its $14.4 billion net revenue in 2024.
“The expansion of the Velo portfolio, with a higher moisture profile, greater flavor variety, and a broader range of nicotine strengths, plays a significant role in addressing the diverse and evolving preferences of adult nicotine consumers and advances our vision to Build a Smokeless World,” the company said in a statement to the Triad Business Journal Friday.
The company traces its history to the chewing tobacco company founded by Richard Joshua Reynolds in the community that would become Winston-Salem in 1875, after he left his family’s tobacco business in Virginia.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was incorporated in 1890 and later came under the American Tobacco Company until the so-called tobacco trust was dissolved in 1911. It introduced the Camel packaged cigarette brand and became a foundational company of Winston-Salem. Through a series of corporate changes, it became majority owned by British American Tobacco Group in 2017. It moved most production to the newly built Tobaccoville complex in the 1980s.