Rigello

"He often blurted out the most astonishing statements to his colleagues: “within five years, the paper industry will be completely knocked out by new Japanese plasterboards,” “within a year, Rigello will be the only beer packaging in Sweden,” “I will win the Nobel Prize in Medicine,” etc. Older colleagues could never figure out if he really meant these obviously absurd announcements seriously. But since they all knew that Ruben, despite his lack of impulse control, was an intelligent man, they advised the younger colleagues to never agree with him, but to contradict Ruben when he came up with his sometimes surprising claims. They suspected, although no one ever had proof, that this was Ruben’s way of testing what people were really made of."

"Shortly after the subsidiary directors’ meeting, which ended in a general slashing of Brik, Hans called Åke Gustafson, who was now working on entirely different projects, and asked him to come back and help Tetra Pak. Although he would never have admitted it openly, Hans was desperate; the losses for Brik and the development costs for Rex and Rigello began to devour the capital that had been borrowed and the money that had been freed up with the sale of Åkerlund & Rausing. And the money that could have been used – the commission money that went into the foundations – the company was not allowed to touch by Ruben. If the situation was as bad as the subsidiary directors described, there were only two possibilities to solve the situation. One was to borrow more money to resolve the liquidity crisis that had arisen, but that would, on the other hand, be only artificial respiration. The other possibility was to once and for all get Brik in order so as to avoid this large black hole that just sucked capital."

"Gustafson succeeded in what few within the company believed he would manage: to produce an aseptic Tetra Brik machine that worked flawlessly. By the spring of 1972, the new, improved design was ready and many within the company management were amazed. Hans, who had led the Brik project, but who had started to doubt it over the last two years, could not believe his eyes. Erik Torudd, who had never believed in Brik, wanted to wait and see until the machine was tested out in the field. Ruben was relieved, although in the long run, he expected Rigello to outdo Brik as the company’s most important product."