From the Tetra Pak® archive: Tetra Pak - the key to modern distribution

From the beginning, Tetra Pak® has strived to discover more efficient processes of packaging and seek out modern innovations. This film, made in the 1950's, shows off a few of the challenges Tetra Pak® has taken on to make life easier and more beneficial for our consumers.
Read more about Tetra Pak® here: www.tetrapak.com

[@tetrapak]

Glad you like it FoodBev. We thought we should share these videos that we have in our archives since it's not only our company history but also part of 20th century economic history.

[@tetrapak]

You are right, of course. The first packages were not aseptic and should not be kept unrefrigerated. With aseptic technology, unopened packages no longer needed cooling to stay fresh. However, this was almost 60 years ago, and there are several things in the video that we have another perspective on today. Thanks for your comment!

[@martacrisssoliveira6503]

Precious memories of childhood! The best natural yoghurt flavor, ever!

[@RWBHere]

Thanks for the archive material. It is appreciated, and it brings back some not altogether pleasant memories of the 1960's and 70's. The design was brilliant, but flawed. Some constructive observations about the packs, some of which you have addressed quite well, over the years: Those original cartons were terrible for the consumer. Notice how carefully they are picking them up, opening and pouring from them. If you tried to tear a corner off, as shown in one shot, they usually ripped and spilt the contents all town your clothes. (As demonstrated so memorably on live TV in the U.K. when a proponent of Tetra Pak tried to prove that they were easy to open! There's a version of it, somewhere on KZbin.) The packs could also burst open when warm, as many children carrying Tetra Paks of orange juice to school soon discovered. Even when people tried to open them with the average pair of kitchen scissors, the card/plastic material was tricky to cut neatly, again resulting in spillage. And how the world has changed! Hygiene standards in the video were terrible; at least one corner was handled by the milkman, who had just been handling a dirty truck's controls and door handles, and the other three corners were stood on the obviously dirty doorstep, with no protection, so all corners needed cleaning thoroughly. But most people just put them into the refrigerator without even thinking about antigens on the packaging, which were then transferred to the shelf, and onto the hands of the users, The factory hygiene was both necessary and mandatory, but that need is still not conveyed clearly to the end user. I've seen many packs standing on unclean and stained store display shelves, and they are handled by delivery people, shelf stackers, shop assistants, often several potential purchasers, the customer, the checkout assistant, and whoever transfers the goods to household cupboards and refrigerators. As for the fold-over corners, they were a joke. They never stayed folded for long. We resorted to using clothes pegs for the job. Then the whole advert is trumpeting the fact that there was no need to recycle the used containers! That would surely have killed the product off in short order, if they were invented today. Your company went on to be very big, however, and you improved the packs by reverting to the traditional cuboid shapes we have today, often with plastic screw caps. But they still have problems, both practically and environmentally: The 'pull' opener under many plastic screw cap seals tends to snap, often painfully, resulting in many people not even bothering to try using the option, and simply cutting off a couple of pack corners. (I had that happen again, with a Tetra Pak branded carton, within the past week.) They still don't pour very well, unless you're very careful. And even then, some packs are so badly designed that it's almost impossible to pour from a full container without it gulping and splashing. The trick is to rotate the pack to allow air to enter more easily, but you try telling that to a young child, or to a busy and preoccupied adult! And that bonded plastic/card material is not recycled by my local council. Many other councils might also be consigning the material to landfill, or, at best, sending them to be burned as 'bio fuel' in electricity generating facilities. Thank-you for reading this. 🙂

[@RWBHere]

I forgot to mention the other obvious flaw in the presentation: Hexagonal stacking certainly can be economical - if you ignore the outer edges. A correspondingly hexagonal storage space is needed for maximum packing density. The traditionally-shaped, and modern, square carton is better, because packs can be stored to fill completely a normal rectangular truck, shelf or room. 😉

[@evanpuckettart]

9:44 "Mummy, can I have a glass of milk?" *Gives death glare* "of course my dear" *Death glare intensifies as milk is presented*

[@nokomarie1963]

Certainly a convincing presentation. Although, seeing milk just left on a doorstep without an insulated milk box just shocks me.

[@mikeward6197]

this is cool

[@TheRealFOSFOR]

I'm fairly sure the volume of the cube package is bigger than the tetra shaped one... So not so big of a difference in material cost in that regard... I guess a sphere would be the optimal shape for material cost but it would be impractical to store..

[@TheGregatron3000]

This is like something from Fallout.

[@64etto]

Tetra dalek

[@larrynivren8139]

Is the GLUE HEALTY.??? WHAT it is it made from?????

[@0LoneTech]

Nice presentation, though it feels weird with the blatant sexism of the time and the weird units of the narrator (all the models are simply the volume in milliliters, afaict). Certainly some advances have been made. :)

[@user-sg8rd4rx2f]

Hello

[@larrynivren8139]

They print the sheets and THEN they ROLL them.... So print gets in contact with the FOOD-SIDE.... Are the paints for printing SAFE???? what are they made of.... hopefully nor from oil.......

[@larrynivren8139]

Few people are making MORE money.... the environment (and ALL other humans) pay the price.....

[@larrynivren8139]

GLASS-Bottles: SHURELY INERT and HEALTHY and no Plastic-Waste and no Waste of High-Grade Paper contaminated with paint-chemicals.....

[@larrynivren8139]

WHAT KIND of PLASTIC.???? THAT's EXTREMELY important for human health!!!!!