Founded in 1927, in the heart of one of the most important tobacco areas of France, the Tobacco Institute of Bergerac is one of the two research centers of the Altadis Group. Its vocation is to improve raw tobacco quality in order to match the world agricultural production requirements.

The Institute is the only European research center which is totally devoted to the tobacco plant, its production and its post-harvesting treatment. This complete competence means that we play an important part in several domains: tobacco, a plant of industrial use, is an appreciated experimental model due to its biological properties; the everlasting concern of improving raw tobacco imposes a vast field of studies from seed... to smoke.

This double originality makes the Tobacco Institute a high level research center in the field of plant breeding technologies and knowledge. This has led to a development of special relationships with French and foreign partners.

Lastly, the Institute is a place open to the public: it has one of the most important Nicotiana collections of the world, thanks to the gift of the great American genetician Goodspeed, which goes back to more than forty years.