Emerging market growth boosts Tetra Pak sales

Net sales reached EUR 8.95bn (£8.13bn) for the year thanks to double-digit growth in South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa.

However, the sales growth in those regions was tempered by falling sales in markets affected by the economic downturn, in particular Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where net sales fell 12.2%.

Tetra Pak’s core packaging business achieved EUR 8bn in sales during Q4, an increase of 1.8% compared to the same period in 2008, while sales across its processing division fell 3.8% to EUR 917m.

Dennis Jönsson, Tetra Pak president and chief executive, said that while he was encouraged by the quarterly growth he expected 2010 to be “another challenging year, with continued uncertainty about the speed of the economic recovery”.

He added that the group would remain focused on keeping costs down and pushing efficiency up. “We will continue to invest in innovative technologies and products, as well as plant-infrastructure to meet the changing needs of the market,” he said.

Separately, Tetra Pak UK & Ireland and the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE) announced that last month Sutton became the latest London borough to introduce kerbside collection for beverage cartons, meaning that 52% of boroughs in the capital now provide such schemes.

In 2009, Tetra Pak invested in a number of areas, including the opening of a EUR 60m packaging plant in Hohnot, China, which operates using power entirely generated from renewable resources. The firm also formed a partnership with Brazilian petrochemical group Braskem to purchase limited volumes of HDPE derived from renewable feedstock.

Click here for today’s headlines from across the packaging industry

Popular Articles