25 Facts About Tetra Pak

Tetra Pak is a Swedish-Swiss multinational food packaging and processing company with head offices in Lund, Sweden, and Pully, Switzerland.

Tetra Pak offers packaging, filling machines and processing for dairy, beverages, cheese, ice cream and prepared food, including distribution tools like accumulators, cap applicators, conveyors, crate packers, film wrappers, line controllers and straw applicators.

Tetra Pak was founded by Ruben Rausing and built on Erik Wallenberg's innovation, a tetrahedron-shaped plastic-coated paper carton, from which the company name was derived.

In 1981, Tetra Pak relocated its corporate headquarters to Lausanne, Switzerland, for tax reasons, but retained all research in Lund.

Since the deal allowed Tetra Pak to integrate Alfa Laval processing know-how, the merger made it possible for Tetra Pak to offer packaging and processing solutions.

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In 2001, Tetra Pak Laval acquired the French plastic packaging group Sidel.

In 2014, Tetra Pak acquired Miteco, a provider of production solutions for soft drinks, fruit juices and liquid food, which employs 70 people across sites in Switzerland, Italy, the UK and South America.

Tetra Pak invested €100 million to build a plant in Russia in 2007, and built a €60 million plant in China the following year.

Tetra Pak opened a €120 million aseptic packaging plant in Vietnam in 2019 to supply countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Australia, and New Zealand.

Tetra Pak products have been identified as solid waste problem by many NGOs and environmental groups.

In 2011, Tetra Pak published a set of sustainability targets, which included maintaining its CO2 emission levels at the same level until 2020 and increasing recycling by 100 percent.

Tetra Pak said it will increase its use of Forest Stewardship Council certified paper to 100 percent in 2020, with an interim target of 50 percent by 2012.

In 2020, Tetra Pak joined the European Alliance for a Green Recovery, and set new goals to achieve net zero operations emissions by 2030, and net zero value chain emissions by 2050.

The recently introduced Tetra Pak Recart has been hailed by large retail groups like Sainsbury's as "the 21st Century alternative to canned foods" as the carton's rectangular shape makes transportation, storage, and distribution more efficient, taking up 21 percent less space and weighing two-thirds of a tin can of equivalent volume.

Tetra Pak has operated limited recycling since the mid-1980s, introducing a recycling program for its containers in Canada as early as 1990.

In 2000, Tetra Pak invested 20 million baht in the first recycling plant for aseptic packages in Thailand.

Tetra Pak aims to double the recycling rate within the next ten years, something that will require the engagement of the entire recycling chain.

Tetra Pak cartons have been criticized for being more difficult to recycle than tin cans and glass bottles.

Tetra Pak has stated that it is currently working on joint ventures with local governments around the world to increase the number of recycling facilities.

Tetra Pak established its Food for Development office in 2000, through which it works with local governments, NGOs and farmers to develop school milk programmes, a cause it has supported since 1962, when the first school milk programme supported by Tetra Pak launched in Mexico.

Tetra Pak has occasionally been subject to controversy, most notably regarding its near-monopoly position on certain markets for many years.

In 2004, Tetra Pak was accused of using its near-monopoly in China, where it owned 95 percent of the market for aseptic carton packaging.

Parmalat CFO Fausto Tonna told the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore that Tetra Pak had made substantial payments to Tanzi and his family and to a company in the Cayman Islands belonging to Parmalat.

Tetra Pak acknowledged having made payments to Parmalat but stated that the payments had been made as discounts to subsidize marketing operations and pricing, as is usual practice with large customers.

Tetra Pak was asked by Italian authorities to provide documentation on the transactions, and found that payments had been made since 1995 as part of regular operations but that no payments had been made specifically to the Tanzi family.

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