E-cig juice maker Johnson Creek Enterprises goes out of business

Johnson Creek Enterprises, a Hartland company that was one of the country’s largest independent producers of juice for electronic cigarettes, has abruptly closed.

In a Twitter post Monday, Chief Operating Officer Heidi Braun said, “Very sad to announce we’re going out of business. Effective tomorrow.”

Braun also placed a statement on the Johnson Creek website, saying that as of Tuesday, “Johnson Creek will no longer be in business. I’m so very sorry that we’ve failed you.”

The statement says the firm hopes “to come out of bankruptcy and continue to make and sell products,” but a search of online court records showed no bankruptcy filing.

Braun was not available for comment. Company founder Christian Berkey also could not be reached.

Started in 2008, Johnson Creek was an early player in the electronic cigarette field, producing the flavored, nicotinec ontaining liquids that battery-powered devices turn into a vapor that users inhale.

The firm at one point employed more than 60 people, including chemists and food scientists, and occupied a 52,000square-foot plant in a Hartland industrial park.

It made all the juice used in Lorillard Inc.’s blu eCigs, a major electronic brand, and produced its own brands of smoke juice, sold online and in retail shops specializing in e-cigarette products.

In July, Berkey said new federal regulations on electronic cigarettes would force Johnson Creek to close.

But there is reason to question the effect of regulations on Johnson Creek’s business. A few weeks after Berkey’s statement, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration delayed implementation of the rules he had criticized. In the announcement, which was widely applauded by the electronic cigarette industry, the agency even indicated a willingness to consider the argument that ecigarettes are less harmful than their conventional counterparts, and may help smokers quit tobacco.

At Johnson Creek’s urging, the Village of Hartland had gone to bat for the company last spring, holding hearings on the then-pending federal regulations. Concluding that the regulations were “really quite onerous” and that the federal government hadn’t coordinated on them with local and state government as required, Hartland urged the FDA to rethink the rules, Hartland Village Administrator David Cox said.

However, Cox said Tuesday that while he believed Johnson Creek was hurt by the overhanging prospect of costly regulations, the firm’s troubles also stemmed from a business deal — the sale of a 50% stake to tobacco and cigarette papers distributor Republic Tobacco — that didn’t work out as planned.

As Johnson Creek lost business, the company contracted, Cox said. By last summer, he said, employment at the company had been reduced to about 20.