This article was written by Bruce Craig and first appeared in New Zealand Printer.

The inventor of the modern Tetra Pak drinks carton, Ake Gustafson, has died in Switzerland. Originally from Sweden, the 101-year-old industrialist passed away in the Swiss canton of Fribourg.

Gustafson joined the packaging company Tetra Pak in 1959. At the time, the company produced pyramid-shaped milk cartons but under Gustafson’s leadership, the company developed the packaging into the now familiar rectangular shape.

Arriving on the market in 1963, the ‘Tetra Brik’ soon became ubiquitous. Nowadays, hundreds of billions of units of the packaging system are produced.

Initially, however, some of the cartons leaked and consumers had problems with pouring. This popularised the ambiguous saying: ‘Buy Tetra Pak and you’ll always have milk on the table’.

Gustafson settled in the canton of Fribourg in 1965 and according to the paper La Liberté, he insulated his house in Châtel-St-Denis, where he spent the rest of his life.

In 1977, he acquired the company Sokymat, which was on the verge of bankruptcy at the time and manufactured coils for small motors.

After he restarted the company, it grew over the years and was finally taken over by the Swedish group Assa Abloy in 2003.