Elita is a Latvian brand of cigarettes that was produced between 1967 and 2009 by the Latvian company "Rīgas Tabakas Fabrika" and later by British American Tobacco. According to the data submitted by the Latvian State Revenue Service, Elita was the most sold brand of filtered cigarettes in Latvia for about twenty years.[2]
History
Elita cigarettes were launched in 1967. The cigarettes were mostly distributed in Russia, Latvian SSR and Lithuanian SSR. Elita used an American blend of tobacco in their cigarettes. During the Soviet period, the cigarettes were produced in soft packs, but after the restoration of independence of Latvia, packs were produced in hard packages with twenty cigarettes in each pack, and were distributed in cartons consisting of ten packs. There were more than twenty kinds Elitas produced between 1967 and 2009 belonging to the types KS-20-S and KS-20-H.[3] The Trademark for Elita was owned by British American Tobacco.
In 2004, the Elita Light branch brand was discontinued due to restrictions introduced by European Union's directive 2001/37/EU. The packages were modernized with an increased health warning area and changes to inscriptions were made to “Smoking kills” or any other of thirteen variants on the choice of the vendor.