Ruben Rausing
| Ruben Rausing | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Ruben Andersson 17 June 1895 Råå, Sweden |
| Died | 8 October 1983 (aged 88) |
| Alma mater |
Columbia University |
| Known for | Founder of Tetra Pak. |
Ruben Rausing (17 June 1895 – 8 October 1983) was the founder of the liquid food packaging company Tetra Pak.
Ruben Rausing was born in 1895 in Råå, a small fishing hamlet in the district of Raus outside of Helsingborg in the south of Sweden, to August and Mathilda Andersson. His father ran a small but successful business as a master painter. Rausing went to Upper Secondary School in Helsingborg, graduating in 1915. When doing his military service, Rausing, at the time still called Ruben Andersson, was allegedly nicknamed rausingen by his fellow servicemen, meaning "the lad from Raus". Taking a liking to this name, he eventually changed his surname from Andersson to Rausing.
With the help of a loan from his aunt, Rausing studied at the recently founded , graduating in 1918. After a brief engagement at the privately owned Enskilda Banken, Rausing was employed by Sveriges Litografiska Tryckerier, SLT (later renamed Esselte), a well-known printing company. In 1919 he earned a scholarship from to continue his studies at Columbia University in New York and obtained a MSc in Economics in 1920. Experiencing self-service grocery stores for the first time during his stay in America, Rausing realised that this system, yet unknown in Europe, was going to be part of a new way of retailing.
Returning to Sweden in 1920, Rausing continued his employment at SLT, first as a Manager Assistant and then as a Manager. During his time at SLT, Rausing became closely aqcuainted with the industrialist Erik Åkerlund and in 1929 Rausing left SLT to form a new packaging company together with Åkerlund in Malmö, Åkerlund & Rausing. Åkerlund & Rausing was the first packaging company in Scandinavia and eventually became a leading manufacturer of dry food carton packages. Initially, however, the company had difficulties making profits and in 1933 Åkerlund sold his share to Rausing, who became the sole owner.
At the time, non-carbonated drinks such as milk and juices were sold in heavy and cumbersome glass bottles and Rausing was determined to find a way of implementing the new, modern packaging technology, spending a lot of resources on developing new concepts. With the aim of producing a carton container for liquid foods, similar to the hygienic and practical wax-coated paper cartons Rausing had seen overseas, Åkerlund & Rausing created the plastic-coated carton tetrahedron, patented on 27 March 1944.
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