The ordinariness. Despite the fact that this company is obscure at first glance, each of us faced Tetra Pak products as it’s a leader in the production of food packaging. This company produces packaging used by Europe and in the Soviet times, but now the company operates in 170 countries around the world.
Beginning. The founder of Tetra Pak is Ruben Rausing. Father of Ruben led a small business, so the boy’s childhood was not heavy, but his family could not be called rich. Ruben got a good education, graduating from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Education. After the army and the Economic School Rausing went to the United States. In 1920 he received a master’s degree from Columbia University. In the US, he saw a supermarket and understood that the food industry had changed radically, and it needed to get more economical and convenient to transport packaging.
Returning to his homeland Rausing started well: he was appointed as an assistant manager in a successful typographic company. Then he calmly planned the creation of his own company, but did not have the capital to start his own business.
Begging. In search of money, he went to the major Swedish businessmen. He appealed to the truly rich people, such as the head of Electrolux Axel Gren. His idea was not appreciated, and he could not get money.
Akerlund & Rausing. Independence in this matter was crucial for Rausing. Together with his friend Eric Akerlund he in 1929 founded his own company called Akerlund & Rausing. It produced packaging for dry products. Rausing had plans to create packaging for liquid products, but he was not able to do it at once.
Akerlund & Rausing: the beginning. The company was not successful, so in 1933, Comrade of Rausing sold his interest and left the business. Ruben had to monitor the development of the case, and he was able to attract several talented inventors, such as Erik Wallenberg.
The first technology. It was Wallenberg who created in 1944 the first paper packaging for milk, which was able to replace glass bottles. Someone say that Wallenberg had developed packaging for milk during one year, and some put the number of 10 years.
Tetra Classic. Packaging for milk had to meet several requirements: absolute integrity, compliance with hygiene standards, low cost materials. The new packaging had unique shape of a tetrahedron, which allowed to reliably protect the contents of the material at the lowest cost. It was called Tetra Classic.
Triumph of the company. After several years of failed development Rausing came to triumph, because he believed in his company and has worked in several industries at the same time. Ruben in 1944 patented a package in his name, and Wallenberg remained unrecognized author of one of the most useful inventions of humanity. Only in 1991 he got Grand Gold Medal from the Swedish Academy of Science and Engineering.
The start of production was a success immediately. The reason for delaying the start of production was the lack of packing machine, which is why it was impossible to pour milk in such packaging. Later, a new method of sealing has been created, as well as new technology – coated polyethylene paperboard. By the end of the 1940s the problem of filling the packaging has been resolved – an idea on which the machine formed from paper cylinders and filled with milk, was given by Rausing’s wife.
Branch. In 1951, the laboratory that develops and produces packaging, was separated into the subsidiary company under the name Tetra Pak. This year packaging company became public and began to install its vending machines for bottling milk in local dairies.
Advertising company was needed for Rausing badly, as many people have opened new packaging wrongly and spilled a lot of milk. So to make buyers have not returned to the usual glass bottles, Rausing explained how to open tetrahedrons.
Asepsis. The first aseptic packaging was created in 1961, thanks to its appearance milk and other products can be stored for almost a year without preservatives or refrigeration. One year later, the success of the new packaging was known in Lebanon, and even now Tetra Classic Aseptic is one of the most important innovations in the history of the food industry.
These days. Now the company has more and more expanding production, and revenues from the sale of Tetra Pak is $ 10 billion a year. And the history of the company Tetra Pak is a good example of how out of the ordinary ideas a multi-billion dollar business can be created.
Look into the future. In global terms, calculated to 2020, it states that the recycling of packaging indicators should be doubled. The plans of the company’s specialists also have the creation of an entirely environmentally friendly packaging, which is composed entirely of renewable materials.
