What Is 77 in South Africa? The Nicotine Pouch Brand Explained

What is 77? It is a brand of Luna Corporate, a Polish company that produces nicotine, energy and coffee pouches, and the 77 nicotine pouches on our South Africa shelf run from 5.2mg to 20mg of nicotine per pouch.

Readers in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria tend to ask the same few things first: what the number on the lid means, how long a pouch stays in, and which cans sit where. The chart below lays out every strength on our shelf, and our guide to the mg level of every 77 can goes through each one in turn. The figure worth reading first is the one per pouch, and it is usually the easiest to find.

Which company is behind 77?

77 is made by Luna Corporate, a private limited company registered at Suchy Las, close to Poznań in Poland, and entered in the Polish company register in December 2020. The pouches are produced at the maker's own facility in Poland, which gives a small piece of geography to a product most people only ever meet as a lid and a flavour name. Luna Corporate describes itself as a producer of nicotine, energy and coffee pouches, and 77 is one of the brands it owns.

Like other nicotine pouches, 77 uses a plant fibre filling with nicotine added, in place of tobacco leaf. That matters for anyone who arrives from a search such as 77 snus, because traditional snus is made from ground tobacco while a nicotine pouch is not, even though both sit under the upper lip. In South Africa the two words are often used loosely for the same small white pouch, and the product description on the can is what settles it.

One strand of the range has a famous face attached. The VB cans, which people also type as 77vb, are a special edition made in collaboration with the Finnish motorsport star Valtteri Bottas, a partnership the maker dates to 2023. Every can named VB belongs to that edition and no other can does, so the standard range and the Ghost line stand apart from it.

What does the mg figure on a 77 can actually measure?

The mg figure is the nicotine in one pouch, so 10.4mg means 10.4mg in each pouch, and a total for the whole can would be a much bigger number that says nothing about how a single pouch feels. Milligrams per gram is a different measure again, because it describes concentration. Think of a box of rusks: the figure per 100 grams on the label tells you how the recipe compares, while the amount in one rusk tells you what you are actually eating. Concentration and portion answer different questions, and for pouches the portion is the number to compare.

We group the strengths by nicotine per pouch: Light covers 1 to 8mg, Medium 8 to 16mg, Strong 16 to 25mg, and Extreme begins at 25mg. The 5.2mg cans therefore fall in Light, the 10.4mg and 15.6mg cans in Medium, and the 20mg cans in Strong. Those words are the shop's own groupings and not a national standard, so the same word can sit on a different number elsewhere, which is exactly why the mg per pouch is the thing to read.

The lid adds its own guide in dots out of five: two on the lightest cans, three at 10.4mg, four at 15.6mg and five on the mini cans at 20mg. Can size works like a box of rooibos tea bags, where a box of twenty and a box of eighty make the same cup, so the count tells you how long the box lasts and nothing about how strong each one is. Each standard 77 can holds 20 slim pouches.

Flavour names are a separate matter. Words such as ice, freeze and peppermint describe cooling, much as peppermint chewing gum sits beside a menthol lozenge: one feels colder than the other, and neither says anything about nicotine.

How much time should a 77 pouch spend in your mouth?

A nicotine pouch is kept in for 30 to 60 minutes, depending on the user's preference. That is the span people settle into with 77, and where inside it you land is a matter of taste and not a rule, whether the pouch goes in for a short break on the commute or a long meeting that overruns. Our page on how long a 77 pouch stays in South Africa goes into the detail.

A can of 20 pouches therefore lasts as many days as your routine allows, and a lighter pouch simply holds less nicotine across the same time. It could be argued that strength and time are two separate dials, and the mg per pouch only turns the first.

Where does a 77 pouch go, and what happens afterwards?

A 77 pouch goes under the upper lip, where moisture releases the nicotine and the flavour, and it stays there for the time you have chosen before it comes out. Once it is out, it goes in the bin. Our walkthrough of putting a 77 pouch in for the first time covers placement in more detail.

The first pouch of the day tends to be the most noticeable, so a reader in Durban choosing a 5.2mg can is simply picking a gentler first load. Slim is the standard format and mini is the smaller one, and the format changes how the pouch sits, not the figure printed on the lid.

What flavours does 77 come in?

77 comes in mint, fruit, cola and sweeter dessert style flavours, and a flavour name never changes the mg figure. Our page on choosing a 77 flavour in South Africa sorts them by who tends to like what, and the families below show the spread.

Mint

Mint is the widest family on the shelf: fresh mint, ice mint, peppermint, freeze mint, spearmint, arctic mint, apple and mint, peach and mint, and melon and mint. The ice and freeze names lean towards cooling, while peppermint and spearmint lean towards a plain mint taste.

Fruit and ice

The fruit group covers forest fruits, raspberry ice, watermelon ice, blueberry ice, blackcurrant ice, grape ice, strawberry, pink punch and sour bliss, with mango arriving in the Ghost line. The ice flavours add a cooling note to the fruit, which is a taste matter and not a strength one.

Cola and sweet

Cola appears as cola and cherry, cola and vanilla and cola ice. The sweeter end has raspberry and vanilla, blueberry vanilla banana, salted caramel and bubblegum, for readers who prefer a pouch that tastes closer to a dessert than a mint.

Which lines make up the 77 range?

The 77 range splits into the standard range, the Valtteri Bottas edition and the Ghost line, and each differs in strength, size or both. Our page on how the 77 lines sit against each other in South Africa sets them side by side.

The standard range

The standard range is the plain 77 label, in slim pouches, 20 to a can, at 5.2mg, 10.4mg and 15.6mg per pouch. That puts the first in Light and the other two in Medium.

The Valtteri Bottas edition

The VB edition also comes in slim pouches, 20 to a can: Arctic Berry at 5.2mg and 10.4mg, with Arctic Mint and Spearmint at 10.4mg. VB Mini is the same collaboration in the mini format at 20mg per pouch, in Arctic Berry, Arctic Mint and Spearmint, and its lid shows all five dots.

Ghost

Ghost is the mini format line at 20mg per pouch, and Ghost and Ghost Mini are one and the same line, which means every Ghost can is a mini. Our shelf carries it in bubblegum, cola ice, mango, cola and vanilla, and watermelon ice. Readers who search for mini 77 or 77 mango are usually looking for this line, or for VB Mini, and both sit in Strong.

Where can you buy 77 in South Africa?

You can buy 77 from our South African shelf, which sits within our wider range of snus of every strength, and we deliver to South Africa, including Gauteng (Johannesburg and Pretoria), Cape Town and Durban. The shelf lists 49 products from 77 at present, spread across 5.2mg, 10.4mg, 15.6mg and 20mg per pouch. Our page on ordering 77 in South Africa has the detail.

Which 77 cans carry the lowest strength?

The Light cans, all at 5.2mg per pouch, are where the 77 range starts, and they cover cola, mint and fruit. In cola there is 77 Cola & Cherry 5.2mg, the cherry light can that many people ask for by name, and 77 Cola & Vanilla 5.2mg. Fruit is covered by 77 Forest Fruits 5.2mg, while mint offers 77 Fresh Mint 5.2mg, 77 Ice Mint 5.2mg, 77 Melon & Mint 5.2mg and 77 Peppermint 5.2mg.

77 Raspberry Ice 5.2mg and 77 Raspberry Vanilla 5.2mg bring raspberry in two ways, the second being the raspberry & vanilla that appears in searches. 77 Valtteri Bottas Arctic Berry 5.2mg is the Bottas edition at its lightest. Anyone who types 77 light into a search box is looking at this group, and if you would like to see the wider shelf alongside it, you can get nicotine pouches delivered from the full range.

How does 77 compare with other brands?

77 sits among the well known nicotine pouch names, and the useful comparison is always the mg per pouch beside the flavour. A side by side of 77 against Zyn by strength and flavour lines the two up, and Velo set against 77 does the same for that pair. Whichever you read, open the product page first, check the mg per pouch, and choose the flavour afterwards.