Founded in 1927, in the heart of one of the most important tobacco areas of France by SEITA, the French Tobacco Monopoly, the Tobacco Institute of Bergerac (ITB) is one of the three research centres of the Imperial Tobacco Group. Its primary remit is the improvement of tobacco quality in order to meet current and future production and market needs worldwide.

Today ITB is the only European research centre that is fully devoted to the tobacco plant: The institute's unique assets are the combination of laboratories for research, chemical and biological analyses, greenhouses for breeding, fields in the vicinity of the institute, and post-harvest tobacco treatment facilities on-site. This enables and facilitates a direct transfer of knowledge from research work to practical application.

In addition, the Tobacco Institute of Bergerac houses one of the most important tobacco seeds collections (Nicotiana gene bank) in the world, thanks to a generous gift from the famous American geneticist Thomas Goodspeed more than forty years ago.

The ITB team comprises more than 30 specialists, many of them scientists or technicians, working in some 2000 m² of laboratories and greenhouses, respectively, directly surrounded by 5 hectares of experimental tobacco fields.

ITB's abilities and the expertise of its team with regard to breeding, tobacco plant pathology, seed and tobacco production, including post-harvest treatment, have led to its high reputation and various co-operations with national and international partners. In the tobacco field, support is provided to growers in France, Europe and overseas.

ITB has a catalogue of proprietary male sterile tobacco varieties which have been created through decades of breeding activities. These varieties have been developed in order to integrate disease and pest resistances, for adaptation to specific growing conditions and for some specific leaf properties. They are commercialised as naked or coated seeds.