Tetra Pak says there is growing recognition in Saudi Arabia for its aseptic packaging products. The system was introduced on the world stage more than 20 years ago.

“The aseptic packaging process allows more delicate processing of foods, juices and dairy products, preserving their flavour and nutritional content,” it said. It quoted a Saudi Ministry of Health nutrition department official and vice president for the Saudi Society for Food and Nutrition, Dr Khalid Madani, as saying that despite aseptic packaging being more expensive than traditional packaging “there’s a real safety advantage on top of the good taste” and that “some customers are willing to pay nearly double.”
Last year the company unveiled a new Tetra Pak A1 filling machine that can meet high demands on capacity, performance and quality. Producing Tetra Classic Aseptic packages in sizes from 65 ml to 200 ml, the filling machine is suitable for several liquid food applications, in markets where cost is as decisive a factor as eye-catching package shape. The new Tetra Pak A1 filling machine has a production capacity of 10,000 to 13,000 packages per hour, depending on package size.
Tetra Pak said it manufactured in Jeddah last year 122 packs for every man, woman and child in Saudi Arabia. It made an outstanding start this year, producing some 603 million finished packages in a single line at one factory in one month.
“The Jeddah team complemented this record by also establishing a new benchmark in terms of productivity with very low waste figures.
“This was a real team effort,” said Roberto Velenzuela, factory director. “Every one in the factory played a role.”
Within the kingdom, there is a substantial growth in dairy, beverages and food (mostly tomato paste) products, reflecting the worldwide trend of dairy producers worldwide to take advantage of the increasing popularity of high-protein diets. Increasing new innovations in the dairy products with value-added are a result of the awareness of health and nutrition issues and lifestyle.
According to Tetra Pak, the Saudi market consumes 1 billion litres per year, a growth rate of between three and four per cent per year for the last six years.
“Tetra Pak has the ability to pace the local growth in population,” it says.  “The final and production challenges are to generate capacity without major capital investment by building mostly on high utilisation of their equipment and focused efficiency improvements.
“The Saudi consumption of health products is still half the per capita consumption of European countries. This gives the local market a high potential for growth as in Saudi Arabia 50 per cent of the population is below age 20 and the population will double in number to reach 40 million by 2020.
“In 2003, 55 per cent of the Jeddah factory production was for Saudi Arabia (the primary market) and 45 per cent for the GCC and other countries in the Middle East, North Africa and some Asian countries.
“Having achieved a record level of production, the team has forecast that in 2004 the Saudi factory will export to 26 different countries and set itself the target of producing over 7.2 billion cartons per annum by 2007.”
Tetra Pak, which operates in more than 165 markets with 20,900 employees, last year crossed for the first time the 105-billion packs per year mark. Turnover that year was Euro 7.3 billion.
Tetra Pak is no longer only synonymous with liquid-food cartons. Today, it supplies hundreds of different types of packaging, from cartons to Pet bottles. It develops its own state-of-the-art processing solutions, and designs and services food and liquid-food plants.
Tetra Pak currently has 58 market companies around the world, 65 packaging material plants (including licencees), and 15 packaging machine assembly factories.