Adams International's processing and storage facities for export tobacco are located in the town of Ban Phai, Khonkaen province, in northeast Thailand.

The processing facility is modernized and updated every few years - and recently underwent a thorough restructuring. The processing facility comprises 240 de-stringing tables, imported steam tunnels, custom-built leaf separators and a picking section.

There are four blending silos with a capacity of 2.5 tons each. Each silo feeds two sets of packers arranged in a 5 to 3 split.

The factory can process and pack three grades simultaneously with an estimated capacity of 80 tons per day or 5 tons per hour.

Packed bales weigh 25 kgs and are wrapped in hessian. For shipping purposes a maximum of 620 bales (15,500 kgs) can be placed in one 40 ft container. Typically 300 bales are placed in a 20 ft container, 600 bales in a 40 ft container.

Scrap is packed into C48 cartons at 140 kgs/carton and fines at 160 kgs/carton. For shipping purposes 99 cartons can be placed in one 40 ft container.

The company has a storage capacity of 27,000 sq. meters which equates to about 7 - 7,500 tons of storage depending if it is green or packed bales. All tobacco is stored using the rack and plank system.

Grading, Blending and Processing

As the farmer bales are purchased, each bale is graded according to leaf size and quality. There are 11 <farmer buying grades> A1 - A4, B1 - B4 and K1 - K3.

The farmer price for each buying grade is set by the Thai government.

When the tobacco is brought into the factory all the bales are regraded to correct any buying errors and separate any bales that are wet or moldy.

All this data is stored using a sophisticated bar code system and this is used to calculate the blends that will be run in the factory. The same bar code system is used to monitor the performance of each farmer and production area.

If customers have particular requirements, custom grades can be specified during customer visits at the beginning of the processing season.