Gad family

"After nearly 40 years as leader of the family conglomerate, initially in name only but later undisputed, Hans cut ties with the company in August 1995. In our interview with Hans, a few years after he had sold and left the company, he stated emphatically and with relief in his voice: “The essential thing was that I had either been CEO or chairman of the board for 37 years and that’s enough. I can assure you that’s enough!” In a later interview in DN in 2006, Hans expressed that the reasons for the sale were that he found Tetra Pak to have become a cumbersome large corporation that was increasingly unresponsive to new ideas. He no longer believed in the business future of Tetra Pak. Hans also commented on the Gad family’s takeover with: “It must have been a sudden sentimentality that took over. It was not rational.”"

"When the Gad family took over, the work within Tetra Pak was focused on tailoring a package for each customer. It is a trend that began in the 1970s, especially in the Japanese subsidiary. The Japanese market often demanded a range of special solutions and particularly high quality. When these demands began to arise in the 1970s, they were considered by many within the company as impossible to meet. But when they realized that it was possible and could also be used in competition in other markets, customer adaptation became somewhat of a term of honor within Tetra Pak. Therefore, the group has decentralized the development work as close to the customers as possible. This has led to new demands where it is largely the subsidiaries that control the development and not the central corporate management or owners."

"To return to Tetra Pak and the challenges the group faces, the first major challenge is the Chinese low-cost competition. Gad Rausing described already in the 1960s, when the management realized the opportunities with the aseptic packaging system, that they “were holding a tiger by the tail and that it was important to keep holding it by the tail”. The situation that has now arisen is that the Gad family and Tetra Pak have had to push their own aseptic “tiger,” as well as dealing with the Chinese “tiger economy” on their heels."