Tetra Pak - History

History

Tetra Pak was created in 1951 as a subsidiary to Åkerlund & Rausing, a food carton company established in Malmö in 1929 by Ruben Rausing and Erik Åkerlund. Rausing, who had studied in New York at the beginning of the 1920s, had seen self-service grocery stores in America, unknown in Europe at the time, and realised that pre-packaging was part of the future in food retailing as a more hygienic and practical way of distributing staple groceries. At the time, these were sold over the counter in cumbersome glass bottles or impractical paper wraps in most European countries. At the end of the 1920s Rausing bought a run-down packaging factory in Malmö together with the industrialist Erik Åkerlund. Åkerlund & Rausing was the first packaging company in Scandinavia and eventually became a leading manufacturer of dry food carton packages. Initially, however, Åkerlund & Rausing had difficulties making profits and in 1933 Åkerlund sold his share to Rausing, who became the sole owner.