Comments by the President & CEO

Future value

Last year, we concluded our comments here noting the expected evolution of our industry in 2024. We forecasted prolonged inflation, lower consumption, regionalisation, supply chain constraints, and a continued cost-focused value chain. Our planned response was to maximise sales opportunities, control costs, and allocate resources selectively. These forecasts became a reality, as did our response, which leveraged our position as a global company with a local presence to succeed in regional markets with varying conditions. We realised net sales growth of 2.0%¹ in 2024, with growth across our three businesses, supporting good profitability and cash flow. We achieved total net sales of €12.8 billion, delivering over 178 billion carton packages globally, which is equivalent to 72 billion litres of food and beverages. Our three businesses – Packaging Solutions, Processing Solutions, and Services – grew by 1.7%, 3.6%, and 7.2%, respectively. I thank our customers for their continued trust, and our employees for their commitment and performance in 2024.

Strategy 2030 and the future of food production

Forecasting is critical in our industry to create future value. Our customers invest in food production systems that must deliver value over decades, while adapting to changing consumer trends. This is why our Strategy 2030 is delivering the next generation of food production, with quality, sustainability, integration, and innovation creating value across our customers’ entire operations. At the end of 2024, we reached the halfway point of this strategy. Over the past 12 months, we delivered new proof points of its success. We released new packaging innovations, such as the Tetra Top^® 330 Midi and 500 Midi with plant-based Eifel™ C38 Translucent Top, Tetra Prisma^® Aseptic 300 Edge, Tetra Top^® AD 150 Mini Garda™ and Idum™ C38 Pro, while continuing to invest in the global deployment of our paper-based barrier starting with the Tetra Brik^® Aseptic 200 Slim Leaf. On the equipment side, we released our Tetra Pak^® TT/3 UHH filling machine, our new Tetra Pak^® Industrial Protein Mixer, and our Tetra Pak^® Homogenizer with Circle Green^® Stainless Steel, while the adoption of our Tetra Pak^® E3/Speed Hyper, the world’s fastest carton packaging machine producing up to 40,000 packages per hour, accelerated globally. We also expanded access to advanced services and solutions that create continuous value for customers, including our Tetra Pak^® Plant Perform contracts, Asset Health Monitoring and revamped maintenance management services. We also supported our customers with the creation of new concepts that engage and delight consumers, with our network of customer innovation and product development centres. And we prepared for future innovations, with successful field tests of various products that we look forward to announcing when we launch globally.

“Our customers invest in food production systems that must deliver value over decades, while adapting to changing consumer trends. This is why our Strategy 2030 is delivering the next generation of food production, with quality, sustainability, integration, and innovation creating value across our customers’ entire operations.”

Beyond the latest innovations, we also know food safety forever remains non-negotiable, and our customers have the highest standards of quality. This is why we work every day to maintaining our focus on continually improving quality for them.

While the above innovations each create value, it is important they do so as a system. Because the future is integration. A great example of this in 2024 was our customer Mengniu receiving the ‘Factory Lighthouse’ certification from the World Economic Forum for its world-first, fully intelligent dairy factory in Ningxia, China. The site was recognised for its innovation, utilising Tetra Pak’s end-to-end solutions. The factory – co-designed by Mengniu and Tetra Pak – uses our digital platform and state-of-the-art production equipment, and has reduced operational costs by 32%, delivery lead times by 55%, and quality defects by 60%. It exemplifies where we want to take our industry with next-generation food production.

Food systems transformation

The future is also about mitigating the impacts of the past. In 2024, we continued our efforts to help our industry transition to a more sustainable food system. Last year, we reported a 20% reduction in value chain² greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and a 47% reduction in GHG emissions across our operations since 2019. This puts us on track to meet our target of net-zero GHG emissions in our operations by 2030³, supporting our long-term ambition to achieve net-zero GHG emissions across the value chain by 2050⁴. We also accelerated our recycling activities, with a 7% increase in carton packages collected and sent for recycling globally, and a 14% increase in the volume of polyAl⁵ sent for recycling⁶. In addition, we expanded our School Feeding Programmes in 2024, helping 64 million children in 49 countries access milk and other nutritious beverages. All of this is part of our aim for a world in which everyone has access to safe food.

At the time of writing in early 2025, Tetra Pak has received two external recognitions for our sustainability contributions in 2024. We were recognised for leadership in corporate transparency and performance on climate change by the global environmental non-profit CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project), securing a place on its annual ‘A List’. Tetra Pak was among the few companies to achieve an ‘A’ score, which it has done for the fourth time in five years. We also reported on forests and water security, earning an ‘A-’ score in both categories and cementing our inclusion in the CDP leadership band. Additionally, we received the Environmental Initiatives Award at the 2025 SEAL Business Sustainability Awards for our Approach to Nature framework that was launched in 2024.

Empowering our teams

Delivering safe food to everyone, everywhere requires top-class teams. In the past 12 months, we have continued to make Tetra Pak a workplace that empowers all colleagues to make an impact. Our Learning Conference is now an annual fixture, and employees were given access to generative artificial intelligence tools, supported by training and education programmes. It was also pleasing to see in 2024 that our biannual, full employee engagement survey showed we are above benchmarks for engagement in many areas. We know we cannot create value for customers without being the best we can be as individuals and as teams internally. This is why we will continue to invest in our people.

The road to 2030

As we reflect on the first half of our Strategy 2030, we can be pleased, but not complacent about our successes. Our vision of food production system that provides greater quality, sustainability, integration, and innovation, delivered by a more dynamic, productive and capable Tetra Pak, is becoming a reality. As our industry and world continue to evolve – bringing both opportunities and challenges – we expect our operating environment to remain volatile. However, we take confidence from our successes last year and from the trust that our customers place in us to continue building the future of food production.

Adolfo Orive