Innovation

Tetra Gemina wins Excellence Award
Every year, Tetra Pak internally awards a number of individuals and teams that have made an outstanding contribution. In 2009, the Innovation Excellence Awards was given to the team behind the new Tetra Gemina Aseptic package. The citation reads: "This innovation is built on our strategic intent of cost driven innovation. It has primarily enhanced an existing technology into a clever application. The market acceptance is already proven and it has good commercial value. We are now building a package family that fits our strategy of differentiation at an affordable cost. The Tetra Gemina Aseptic package is the world’s first roll-fed gable top package with full aseptic performance for juice and milk. It combines the convenience, safety and nutritional benefits of aseptic packaging with exceptional functionality and a great image of freshness."

New process will halve time and double quality
By cutting lead times and increasing quality performance, Tetra Pak aims to speed up the creation of new products. The foundation is a totally revamped innovation process, focusing on cross-functionality. Mike Nelson and his team have an ambitious target. By introducing a new process for the way Tetra Pak develops its products, the Product Creation Redesign (PCR) team has set out to double the quality performance of new products and solutions, while at the same time halving the time to market. "We are taking action to close the gap between customer expectations on quality and the quality we are de- livering. Our customers also compare our lead times with those of other industries and do not understand why it should take so long to develop a new packaging solution", says Mike Nelson, Director for Product Creation.