July 8, 2007
Section: BUSINESS
Page: 01, 03
TERESA McMINN For the Daily Record/Sunday News
HAND-ROLLED CIGARETTES If you don't smoke, don't start. If you do smoke,
smoke smart.
The motto might seem a bit strange coming from a businessman who makes
his living selling cigarette products.
But Mark Tucci and his wife of 26 years, Frances, built a successful and
growing company on the simple message.
York Township-based Custom Blends offers a variety of cigarette
products, including 50 blends of tobacco from Ecuador, Brazil, California,
North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
Tucci started the business about 14 years ago.
"I used to be in the Army in Germany . . . I saw a lot of people rolling
their own," Mark Tucci said.
The hand-rolled cigarettes were cheaper and a better quality, he said.
"I just thought it was so interesting - how there was such a big market in
Europe but no market in the U.S.," he said.
And although the habit of smoking has come under fire with the state
Senate's recent approval of a wide-ranging smoking ban, Custom Blends
continues to thrive. In fact, the Tuccis, who live in Hilton Head, S.C.,
have franchised the company.
The first new business opened in Camp Hill in August. Another franchise is
set to open in Shrewsbury in about six months.
They hope more will follow.
"We're just really taking off nationwide," Mark Tucci said. "We couldn't
have succeeded without the people in York. . . . York is a great town."
Mark and his wife monitor the business from South Carolina using the latest
in technology. Mark's brother, Chris Tucci, of Dover Township, works as the
information technologist for the company.
"Mark can sit anywhere in the country . . . and see everything," Chris Tucci
said of using cameras, computers and high speed Internet.
Custom Blends has customers from around the world who order products
from the company's Web site. Diane Tucci fills Web and phone orders.
Mark Tucci said his customers appreciate the natural products the company
sells.
"We don't use reconstituted tobacco," he said. "Tobacco is a natural
product. We thought that customers would appreciate a natural tobacco."
The company also sells natural cigarettes, he said.
"They burn for so much longer," he said of hand-rolled and natural
cigarettes. There are chemicals in some manufactured cigarettes that aren't
permitted in a landfill, he said.
"People are just so much more satisfied. . . . Our products help people cut
down on smoking. . . . That's really a good thing."
Customers who were in the Queen Street store on Tuesday said they prefer
chemical-free cigarettes over manufactured ones.
"You can taste a difference. I don't think I'd ever go back," Hopewell
Township resident Karen Testani said.
"Since I started making my own, I don't cough," Red Lion resident Wera
Buccheri said. "I used to sound like a frog."
Mark Tucci, who smokes two to three cigarettes a day, said he and his family
are living the American dream.
"We started this company with a $5,000 credit card," he said. "It really
started and fulfilled itself in York County."
Hank Mills of York Township is the district manager for Custom Blends.
"I started rolling my own cigarettes about 17 years ago simply because of
the cost," he said.
Then he heard a radio ad for Custom Blends, became a customer 13
years ago, and worked on and off for the business, he said.
"Mark made me an offer to invest in the company. . . . I knew the potential
was there for the company to grow," Mills said. "Now, we are legal in all 50
states and most of Canada." PIC: DAILY RECORD / SUNDAY NEWS - PAUL KUEHNEL
Hank Mills, district manager of Custom Blends in York Township,
stocks paper tubes for making cigarettes. The paper tubes are filled with
loose tobacco with an assortment of blends cutting the cost over a branded
finished cigarette.