The company’s Packaging Solutions businesses achieved net sales of €9.87 for the year, 4.2 percent higher (comparable terms) than in 2011, with solid growth in South & Southeast Asia, Central & South America, North America, East Europe and Central Asia, and double digit growth in the Middle East and Sub-Sahara Africa.
Sales from Processing Solutions reached €1.29 billion, growing 5.2% year on year (comparable terms), with double-digit growth in North Europe, South & Southeast Asia, Central & South America and Sub-Sahara Africa.
“The economic situation is still tough, with growth slower than before, particularly in China and Brazil, our fastest growing economies. We’ve had to make some tough decisions over the past year to enable us to continue to invest in the development of new products, services and facilities that will enable our customers, retailers and suppliers to thrive in the years to come,” said Tetra Pak President and CEO Dennis Jönsson.
“We remain focused on providing our customers with the right products at the right price to meet the constantly changing needs of the market place,” said Jönsson.
The year saw the launch of a number of new products and features by Tetra Pak, including:
• Tetra Navigato, Tetra Pak’s packaging and processing service portfolio
• Tetra Pak iLine XT, with a new graphical user interface, enabling production integration across the factory floor – from processing and packaging to interfacing to customer warehouse management systems
• Tetra Brik Aseptic 200 & 250 ml Edge portion packs for on-the-go consumption
• Tetra Top Carton Shot with Lokka opening, a convenient 100 ml package with a tear-off opening, designed for health, energy and other dosed drinks
• Tetra Gemina Aseptic Leaf and Crystal packages with HeliCap 27, offering a unique appearance whilst also delivering exceptional holding and pouring performance for consumers.
• Tetra Brik Aseptic 1000 Mid LightCap 24, featuring Tetra Pak’s lowest cost screw cap which offers consumers increased functionality while giving customers efficient pallet utilisation and increased space for branding and product promotion.
• OptiSize volume concept for Tetra Fino Aseptic allowing customers to produce cartons tailored precisely to 70ml and 220ml portions, thus reducing packaging materials waste.
In another step towards its goal of producing 100% renewable packaging, Tetra Pak launched LightCap 30, the first of several caps developed using bio-based polymers, derived from sugar cane. Tetra Pak packages with bio-based polymer caps grew to 610 million in 2012, up from 80 million in 2011.
Through 2012, Tetra Pak continued to invest in facilities to better support its customers’ activities in different parts of the world. It inaugurated a Coconut Knowledge Centre and completed a €42 million investment to upgrade and expand its operations in Singapore; it inaugurated a new laminator, completing a €25 million investment at its packaging material factory in Izmir, Turkey and it opened a new packaging material plant in Imatra, Finland.
Tetra Pak also made two acquisitions designed to strengthen technical capabilities in some strategic areas: It acquired the Minneapolis-based Filtration Engineering Company, Inc., the US market leader in membrane filtration technology for the dairy and cheese industries, and it acquired the assets of Genius Automação de Sistemas Ltda., a São Paulo, Brazil-based specialist in industrial control systems.
In 2012 Tetra Pak supplied more than 173 billion individual packages used by leading food and beverage companies around the world to deliver more than 77 billion litres of milk, juice, nectars and other products to consumers.
During that same 12 month period, the company also delivered 505 new packaging machines, 1,971processing units and 1,721 pieces of distribution equipment. Tetra Pak currently operates 42 production plants for packaging material and closures, 16 technical training centres, eight factories for filling machine assembly and 11 research and development facilities around the world to ensure continued product innovation and excellence in customer service.
