Brown & Williamson
Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corporation was a U.S. tobacco company and a subsidiary of multinational British American Tobacco that produced several popular cigarette brands. It became infamous as the focus of investigations for chemically enhancing the addictiveness of cigarettes. Its former vice-president of research and development, Jeffrey Wigand, was the whistleblower in an investigation conducted by CBS news program 60 Minutes, an event that was dramatized in the film The Insider (1999). Wigand claimed that B&W had introduced chemicals such as ammonia into cigarettes to increase nicotine delivery and increase addictiveness.
Brown & Williamson factory in 1918 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Tobacco |
| Founded | in Winston-Salem |
| Founder | George T. Brown Robert L. Williamson |
| Defunct | 2004 |
| Fate | Merged with the other BAT's U.S. business (BATUS, Inc. and R.J. Reynolds to form Reynolds American. |
| Successor | Reynolds American |
| Headquarters | United States |
Area served | United States |
| Products | Cigarettes |
| Parent | British American Tobacco |
B&W had its headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky, until July 30, 2004, when the U.S. operations of B&W and BATUS, Inc. merged with R. J. Reynolds, creating a new publicly traded parent company, Reynolds American Inc. Some of its brands had been sold earlier in 1996 to the British tobacco company Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco.
B&W was also involved in genetically modifying tobacco (notably the controversial Y1 strain).