F E AT U R E
facing, and appeal to people outside of the
industry,” he said. “We’re not only promoting
but safeguarding, and we’re doing it together.
I’m looking forward to seeing how we can
reach people in media, in the legal system
and gather momentum over the next twelve
months.”
Liam Humberstone, Technical Director of Totally
Wicked, was also optimistic.
“It’s the first time we’ve brought all our
members together at once. It’s an opportunity
to set the baseline for what the IBVTA is
about publicly. It’s great that we’ve got people
representing trading standards here in person,
I’m really interested in learning how they’re
going to set about policing and enforcement
in detail. The idea of light touch regulation
is enticing, but unfortunately the responsible
industry must spend an absolute fortune and
do an enormous amount of work to meet
standards.”
With all gathered in the main conference
room, Fraser Cropper welcomed us to the first
planned IBVTA conference.
“We’ve forced the tobacco industry to get
involved because we’ve succeeded at taking
a sizeable portion of their consumer base,” he
said. “Tobacco companies have their products
sold from places where vape products are
also available. We sell from places catered
specifically to