Developing World as First-Best Customer

"what was decisive was that it was so cheap compared to what the competitors could offer. Thanks to Erik Wallenberg’s ingenious tetrahedral shape, the material usage was only half as much as for competing packaging. And this meant that even poor countries could afford the Tetra system. Tetra Pak’s method of packaging milk is indeed one of the very few Western industrial systems that have been able to be directly adopted by developing countries without major problems."

"In the developing world, it was often impossible to manage the transport of fresh milk from dairies to consumers. They couldn’t afford refrigerated trucks, nor the expensive metal tin cans. On all of Torudd’s travels in the third world, he was therefore constantly asked when there would be a tetra for aseptic milk. “Soon,” he had answered. In a considerable number of cases, he then received the information that it was currently not relevant to purchase the tetra system. “But if you come back with an aseptic package… Well, then things would naturally be in a completely different situation,” he was often told. Now the moment had arrived. And the aseptic packaging not only opened up many poor countries for Tetra Pak, but also a large and relatively well-developed country like the Soviet Union. The Soviet planned economy system resulted in large quantities of fresh food, including milk, being destroyed during the hopelessly long transports. This was because the planners had concentrated the industries in certain locations, while the market could be the entire country. Products were often transported from one end of the vast country to the other. But now, Tetra Pak with its aseptic tetrahedron could solve the problems that the communist regime had created."

"⁠The longer he reflected, the more convinced he became that he and Tetra Pak had a solution that could mean a great deal for public health in developing countries. Ruben looked much further than most and didn’t just focus on the problem of temporarily feeding hungry mouths. For him, it was a question of the developing countries’ possibility of development comparable to that of the rich Western countries. He was completely clear about the importance of proteins and certain amino acids for brain development, from the fetal stage up to six to eight years of age. Ruben argued that the developing world’s lack of protein-rich foods meant that children did not get the chance to develop their full intellectual capacity. This affected the people’s ability to think, plan, and act for their own best interests. From his point of view, the developing countries would inevitably fall behind as long as they couldn’t meet their citizens’ protein needs. The vision he saw before him made him “feel a calling like I perhaps never felt before in my life,” as he himself wrote at a later time. He was sure that he and Tetra Pak, which could package sterile milk in aseptic packaging, would be able to make an important contribution. At just over seventy years old, Ruben tackled one of the world’s most complicated problems.⁠"