A short history of snus, from Sweden to the UK
How a Swedish farm habit became an industry, got banned across Europe, and came back to the UK as a tobacco-free pouch.
Quick answer: Snus began in Sweden in the 1700s, when ground tobacco meant for sniffing was wetted and tucked under the lip instead. Ettan launched in 1822 and General in 1866. The EU banned oral tobacco in 1992, Sweden kept an exemption when it joined in 1995, and from the 2010s Swedish makers built tobacco-free pouches that reached UK shelves around 2019.
The longer version explains a lot about the products on UK shelves today: why they are white, why they taste of mint rather than tobacco, and why the law treats them differently. This page sits inside our snus hub, which covers the product and the law in full.
1600s and 1700s: from snuff to snus
Tobacco reached Sweden in the early 1600s, mostly as nasal snuff, the fashionable form in France at the time. Over the 1700s, Swedish farmers started doing something different with the same ground powder: they mixed it with water and salt and put it under the top lip. It was cheaper than smoking, kept the hands free for work and used locally grown tobacco. The word snus comes from the same root as snuff. By the end of the 1700s, home-made loose snus was common across rural Sweden, and it stayed loose for the next 170 years.
1800s: Ettan, General and the first factories
The first commercial brands appeared as Swedish towns industrialised. Jacob Fredrik Ljunglöf launched Ettan in Stockholm in 1822, and the brand is still sold, which makes it one of the oldest tobacco brands in continuous production anywhere.
General followed in 1866, created by Johan A. Boman in Gothenburg, with the bergamot flavour that still defines it. Grov, a coarser-ground snus, arrived in the same era, and Göteborgs Rapé was launched in 1919. These four lines, all now under Swedish Match, are the brands you will see first on our Swedish snus brands page.
1900s: monopoly, decline and the portion
Sweden nationalised tobacco in 1915, creating a state monopoly that later became Swedish Match. Snus use fell for much of the 20th century as cigarettes took over, and by the 1960s it looked like a product for older rural men.
Two things turned it round. The first was health: as the evidence against smoking piled up from the 1960s, some Swedish smokers moved to snus instead. The second was the portion. In 1973 Swedish Match put snus into small fibre bags, making it clean and simple to use for the first time. Portion snus opened the product to younger users and, eventually, to women, who had rarely used loose. White portions, with a drier bag and less drip, followed in the late 1990s. Our page on the types of snus explains how each format behaves.
1992: the EU ban
In 1992 the European Community banned the sale of tobacco for oral use across all member states. The UK implemented it the same year through the Tobacco for Oral Use (Safety) Regulations 1992. The trigger was concern about new oral tobacco products aimed at young people, and snus was swept up in the ban despite two centuries of Swedish use.
Sweden was not a member in 1992. When it joined in 1995 it negotiated a permanent exemption, so Swedish snus stayed legal in Sweden and nowhere else in the EU. Norway, outside the EU, also kept it legal. The ban was confirmed in the 2014 Tobacco Products Directive, carried into UK law in 2016, and kept on the UK statute book after Brexit. It is why no UK shop can sell snus today, a position we set out in our guide to whether snus is legal in the UK.
2000s: the Swedish experience
Through the 2000s, Sweden became the example everyone in tobacco policy argued about. Its daily smoking rate fell to the lowest in the EU, around 5 percent in recent years, while snus use stayed high. Public health bodies still disagree about how much of that is down to snus. Swedish Match introduced its GothiaTek quality standard in 2000, setting limits on nitrosamines in snus, and used it to argue that Swedish snus was a different product from the oral tobacco the 1992 ban had in mind. The argument did not shift the law.
2010s: the tobacco-free pouch
The answer to a tobacco ban is a product with no tobacco in it. During the 2010s, Swedish makers replaced the ground leaf with plant fibre carrying nicotine, flavouring and a little water, and kept everything else: the tin, the portion, the under-the-lip habit. The first all-white lines appeared in Sweden in the middle of the decade, and because they contained no tobacco they fell outside the 1992 ban.
Nordic Spirit, VELO (first sold as LYFT) and ZYN all come from makers with snus heritage, and all arrived on UK shelves from around 2019. Swedish Match, the maker of ZYN, General and Ettan, was bought by Philip Morris International in 2022. The result is the range of around 45 brands on our nicotine pouches hub, none of which contain tobacco.
2020s: the UK catches up
Nicotine pouches arrived in the UK into a legal gap. They are not tobacco, so the oral tobacco ban does not apply, and they are not vapes, so vape rules do not either. Responsible retailers apply an 18 and over check, as we do, but no law has required it.
The Tobacco and Vapes Bill, going through Parliament through 2025 and 2026, is the UK's attempt to close that gap. It proposes a legal minimum age of 18 for nicotine pouches and gives ministers powers to regulate strength, flavours, packaging and shop display. It does not lift the snus ban. Where the law stands as of October 2026, and what is still only proposed, is laid out on our snus and UK law page; check it, and the government's own pages, for the latest.
Snus history at a glance
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1600s | Tobacco and nasal snuff reach Sweden |
| 1700s | Swedish farmers wet ground tobacco and use it under the lip |
| 1822 | Ettan launched in Stockholm |
| 1866 | General launched in Gothenburg |
| 1915 | Swedish state tobacco monopoly created |
| 1919 | Göteborgs Rapé launched |
| 1973 | First portion snus |
| 1992 | EU bans sale of oral tobacco; UK regulations follow |
| 1995 | Sweden joins the EU with a snus exemption |
| Late 1990s | White portion snus introduced |
| 2000 | GothiaTek quality standard introduced |
| Mid 2010s | First tobacco-free all-white pouches in Sweden |
| Around 2019 | Nicotine pouches reach UK shelves |
| 2022 | Philip Morris International buys Swedish Match |
| 2025 to 2026 | Tobacco and Vapes Bill goes through Parliament |
Frequently asked questions
When was snus invented?
Snus as a product under the lip dates from 1700s Sweden. The first commercial brand, Ettan, was launched in 1822 and is still on sale. Nasal snuff, from which snus developed, had been in Sweden since the 1600s.
Why did the EU ban snus?
The 1992 ban covered all tobacco for oral use. It was driven by concern over new oral tobacco products being aimed at young people, and snus was included because it is oral tobacco. Sweden kept an exemption when it joined the EU in 1995, which is why snus is legal there and not in the UK.
Did nicotine pouches come from snus?
Yes. Tobacco-free pouches were developed by Swedish makers in the 2010s as a way to sell an under-the-lip product in countries where tobacco snus was banned. They keep the format and drop the tobacco.
When did nicotine pouches arrive in the UK?
The main brands reached UK shelves from around 2019. Nordic Spirit, VELO and ZYN were among the first, and the range has grown to around 45 brands since.