Imperial Brands does not sell hope, health or progress. It sells addiction with packaging. Altadis, an Imperial Brands company, appears in Page Outsourcing’s client orbit, which means Page Partners now walks straight into tobacco: the cancer sector, and no, not the cure. Page provides the intake pipe. Imperial provides the smoke. And TCAP is asking why a recruitment company already facing questions over disability complaint handling, redactions and silence is so comfortable helping people into a business model with a warning label and a body count.

The Page Connection

Page Outsourcing does not hide Altadis. It puts the logo in the shiny cabinet.

Across Page Outsourcing’s own pages, Altadis appears in client-logo sections. On Page Outsourcing’s About Us page, an Altadis HR Business Partner gives the little corporate blessing: “Market knowledge, agility, professionalism, closeness and commitment to the project.”

Lovely.

Market knowledge. Agility. Professionalism. Commitment.

All the soft little recruitment words laid neatly beside a tobacco business, like a bereavement card from a serial killer.

Altadis itself says it is part of Imperial Brands. It describes Altadis Imperial Brands as a reference company in Spain’s tobacco sector, entering the current British-origin Imperial Brands group in 2008.

So this is not guesswork. Page Outsourcing publicly presents Altadis as a client-side badge. Altadis publicly places itself inside Imperial Brands.

That is enough for Page Partners.

The Ethics Are The Fucking Point

This one is simple.

Page chose the business.

Nobody forced Page Outsourcing to display Altadis. Nobody forced Page to take the testimonial. Nobody forced Page to let tobacco sit there among the respectable client logos like a lit cigarette on a hospital pillow.

That is the ethics question. Page’s recruitment machine chooses clients. It provides filters. It takes money. It helps companies move people into roles, clean up hiring pipelines and make the whole intake pipe look professional.

So when Page chooses tobacco, that says something ugly and obvious.

It says the money spends. It says the client badge counts. It says the cancer factory can still get recruitment polish if it brings a purchase order and a warm smile.

After Page’s conduct in my case, after the redactions, the DSAR mess, the joinder, the ET3 silence and what looked to me like a corporate attempt to bail out when disability discrimination entered the room, TCAP is entitled to ask whether Page has an ethics policy or just a price list in a nicer font.

The Cancer Sector, Not The Cure

Let’s not play corporate pretend. They aren’t recruiting for Marie Curie.

Tobacco is not shoes. It is not stationery. It is not a consultancy package with three workshops and a bad lunch.

The World Health Organization says tobacco kills up to half of users who do not quit. It says tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year, including an estimated 1.6 million non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke.

The CDC says cigarette smoke contains more than 7,000 chemicals and at least 69 of those chemicals can cause cancer. It says smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in the body.

So when TCAP calls Imperial Brands a cancer factory, that is not colourful abuse dragged out of the swear cupboard for effect.

It is the business model.

Make the product. Sell the product. Defend the product. Rebrand the product. Diversify the product. Talk about “adult consumers” and “choice” and “next generation products” until the air smells like a crematorium waiting room with a marketing department.

Then hire.

Then recruit.

Then bring in Page.

Because even a cancer factory needs HR.

And that is the line Page cannot polish. They are not recruiting for the cure. They are not staffing oncology wards, cancer screening, smoking cessation or labs trying to cut tumours out of the future. They are helping tobacco look like a normal employer.

That is the filth of it.

The warning label is already the autopsy report.

And Page still took the business. But experience has shown us they operate without a conscience. We’re just shocked they didn’t redact this one instead of parading it.

Imperial’s Smoke Machine

Imperial Brands does not describe itself like TCAP does, obviously.

It calls itself a global consumer-focused business in the transforming tobacco and nicotine industry. Its annual report talks about a focused and agile enterprise, sustainable growth, combustible products and next generation products.

Combustible.

There is a phrase with a little warning label swinging from it.

Not “products that kill people when used as intended”.

Not “lung cancer wrapped in paper”.

Not “shareholder returns from addiction chemistry”.

Combustible.

This is how the language gets laundered. Death becomes category management. Addiction becomes consumer focus. Smoke becomes portfolio. The burn ward gets a dashboard.

And Page Outsourcing lets Altadis sit there in the respectable light, wearing the same corporate aftershave as the harmless brands.

No.

Not harmless.

Not neutral.

Not just another client.

The Supply Chain Stink

Then there is Malawi.

A legal claim was filed in the UK against British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands on behalf of tobacco farmers and family members. The claim alleged that the companies profited from child labour, forced labour, exploitation and dangerous conditions on tobacco farms in Malawi.

Imperial denied condoning exploitative practices and said it took child and forced labour seriously. Fine. Put the denial in. TCAP is not here to pretend allegations are findings.

But the allegation is serious as hell.

Leigh Day says it represents impoverished tenant tobacco farmers, including children and family members, and alleges negligence and unjust enrichment. The claim says poor and illiterate workers were trafficked from southern Malawi to tobacco farms in central and northern regions, and that exploitation flowed from profit-maximising conduct.

So here is the picture.

The product kills. The crop carries child-labour allegations. The supply chain allegedly exposes vulnerable people to dangerous conditions.

And Page Outsourcing is happy enough to put Altadis in the client cabinet and quote its HR Business Partner on professionalism.

Professionalism.

A beautiful word to find floating in this swamp, face down with a cigarette burn in its shirt.

The Vape Costume Change

Imperial also owns the blu vape brand through Fontem.

The FDA has issued marketing denial orders for multiple blu and myblu products, including menthol and flavoured e-cigarette products. In 2024, the FDA denied applications for several blu Disposable and myblu products, saying the applications lacked sufficient evidence to show marketing would be appropriate for the protection of public health. In 2025, the FDA denied marketing for blu Disposable Classic Tobacco 2.4%, saying the company had not provided sufficient evidence that adults who smoke would completely switch or significantly reduce cigarette consumption.

That matters because this is the industry pivot.

When cigarettes get too radioactive, the industry starts talking about transition, harm reduction, next generation products and adult smokers. Some of that debate is real. Some of it is also a giant corporate costume change by companies whose old product already filled the morgue.

A nicotine funnel is still a funnel.

A recruitment funnel is still a funnel.

And Page is still choosing who gets helped through the door.

Page’s Recruitment Filter

Now bring it back to Page.

Page Outsourcing sells end-to-end recruitment process machinery. It talks about sourcing, screening, candidate management, dashboards, recruitment process outsourcing, market data, hiring criteria and candidate quality.

With Altadis, Page is not hiding in the shadows. It is showing the logo. It is using the testimonial. It is telling the market that this is a relationship worth displaying.

So TCAP asks the obvious question.

What kind of candidate filtering does a tobacco company buy?

Who gets moved forward? Who gets screened out? Who gets considered culturally suitable for an industry that sells addiction and then calls it consumer choice?

Who is considered too awkward for the tobacco machine?

Disabled candidates? People with health gaps? People who have complained? People who might ask why a company built on carcinogenic product sales needs another layer of recruitment respectability? What about cancer survivors?

Page’s own conduct in my case makes those questions sharper. Because when a disabled candidate raised a discrimination complaint, what followed, in my view, was not clean accountability. It was redactions, complaint-handling fog, joinder, ET3 silence and attempted escape.

So when Page chooses tobacco, the ethics are not separate.

They are the fucking story.

The Question For Page

Why take the business?

Why display Altadis?

Why let a tobacco company sit in the client cabinet like it is just another respectable growth partner?

Did Page ask about Imperial’s supply-chain allegations? Did Page ask about child labour risk in tobacco farming? Did Page ask whether recruitment support for a tobacco company fits Page’s own values?

Did Page ask what it means to help staff a business whose products are linked by public-health authorities to cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and millions of deaths?

Did Page ask anything?

Or did the invoice answer first?

Because Page’s ethics are not shown by the slogans. They are shown by the clients it is willing to serve, the conduct it is willing to defend, the silence it is willing to sit in and the redactions it is willing to hide behind.

Altadis / Imperial Brands tells us plenty.

The Last Drag

Imperial Brands is a perfect Page Partners target because this one is not complicated.

The product kills. The supply chain has faced serious child-labour and forced-labour allegations. The vape pivot has run into FDA denials. Imperial talks about consumer focus, combustible markets, next generation products and sustainable growth while the public-health record stands there coughing blood into a napkin.

Then Page Outsourcing turns up with the client badge and the testimonial.

Market knowledge. Agility. Professionalism. Commitment.

Fine.

Here is TCAP’s market knowledge: tobacco is not neutral. Addiction is not innovation. Cancer is not a category. A warning label is not a business model cleanse. And recruitment polish does not turn a cigarette company into a harmless partner.

Page chose the business.

Imperial provides the smoke.

Altadis sits in the client cabinet.

And TCAP is asking why a recruitment company already facing questions over disability complaint handling, redactions and silence is so comfortable helping move people into the cancer sector.

Not the cure.

The cancer sector.

Because when Page says professional, TCAP hears profitable.

And when Imperial says combustible, TCAP sees the bodies.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Page Partners : Imperial Brands – Recruitment Smoke For The Cancer Factory