Thinking Outside the Box: Tetra Pak’s Past and Future

September 2002 marked the 50th anniversary of the first Tetra Pak packaging system. Conceived, according to legend, in Rueben Rausing’s kitchen in Sweden, the invention represented the birth of a new concept—a paperboard composite for the containment of fluid milk.

Derived from observation of Mrs. Rausing’s home-made sausage making, the package was fabricated from roll stock material to produce an economic and efficient tetrahedral shape. The shape, with end heat seals at 90° angles to each other…