Tetra Pak Inc., creator of the familiar brick-shaped beverage boxes, is today the world’s largest beverage carton manufacturer.Founded in 1951 by Dr. Ruben Rausing, Tetra Pak has grown from its humble beginnings in Rausing’s homeland of Sweden to a multinational organization operating in over 100 countries around the world and supported by a workforce of over 13,000 people.

Tetra Pak’s Canadian head office is located in Aurora, Ontario. Here, packaging material for Tetra Brik Aseptic packages is manufactured and printed with customers’ designs. Compact rolls of packaging material are shipped from the Aurora production facility to dairies and fruit juice manufacturers across Canada to be formed into boxes and filled. In addition to its head office in Ontario, the company has sales and service centres in Vancouver and Montreal. Tetra Pak Canada employs about 240 people, with 220 of them working in the Aurora head office. This facility contains one of seven important research and development units operated globally by the Tetra Pak Group of Companies.

What makes the Tetra Brik Aseptic carton unique is the fact that it can keep even the most perishable of liquid foods, such as milk, fresh for months without the need for refrigeration or preservatives. The packaging material is made of alternating layers of paper (75 percent), plastic (20 percent) and aluminum foil (5 percent). The result is an extremely light-weight packaging material that is impervious to light, air and bacteria—elements that can damage food.

1. Tetra Pak cartons are a nutritious and safe way to package liquid foods. 2. “Superwood” lumber— recycled from mixed waste plastics and beverage boxes—is waterproof and can be used to make a variety of products such as fences, docks, shipping pallets and outdoor furniture.

The UHT (Ultra High Temperature) processing method used for aseptically packaged foods is similar to pasteurization in that it uses heat to kill bacteria. Its only difference from conventional pasteurization is that processing temperatures are hotter and much shorter in duration; this results in superior nutrient and flavour retention in foods. For these and other reasons, in 1989 the U.S.-based Institute of Food Technologists named aseptic packaging and processing as the most significant food science innovation in the last fifty years. Voted second and third respectively were the safe canning of vegetables and the microwave oven.

Beverage boxes are available in sizes ranging from 125 ml to one litre. In Canada, the majority of products packaged in these containers are fruit juices, drinks and flavoured milk. Other products include wine, sauces, iced tea, pharmaceutical products, baby formula and whipped topping. Tetra Pak has always maintained an active concern for the environment. The company’s environmental policy is: “to provide cost-effective packaging systems for liquid food that maximize product quality and safety and that simultaneously minimize effects on the environment.”

In 1990 Tetra Pak cartons began to be recycled for the first time anywhere in the world in Markham, Ontario. Since then Mississauga, Lindsay, Muskoka, and Alexandria/Cobourg have added beverage boxes to their regular Blue Box programs as have over 500 schools in Newfoundland, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario’s York Region. The packages, along with mixed waste plastics, are being recycled into a durable synthetic lumber called “Superwood.” Tetra Pak’s goal is to develop recycling programs in schools and municipalities right across Canada.