Liquid growth: Tetra Pak expands investment in Chinese milk market
Tetra Pak has announced the official opening of Tetra Pak (Beijing) Co Ltd, a joint venture facility between Tetra Pak and its Chinese partner, Beijing Pulp & Paper Experimental Mill. The US$80m factory will have an annual production capacity of 6 billion packages. With the new facility, Tetra Pak China is now in a better position to provide strong support for Chinese dairy customers and to address the increasing demands resulting from the rapid growth of the Chinese liquid milk market.
"To meet the rapidly growing demands for liquid food consumption in China, Tetra Pak is taking active initiatives such as additional investment and production capacity expansion to support China’s dairy industry and market development", says Nick Shreiber, Tetra Pak Group president and CEO. To date, Tetra Pak’s accumulated investment in China has reached US$200m.
Hudson Lee, Tetra Pak China managing director, says, "The opening of this Tetra Pak Beijing facility marks a new phase of partnership between Tetra Pak and its Chinese partners and customers. Conveniently located in North China, the new factory will be able to offer strong support to customers’ business development through its world-class packaging equipment and technology for liquid food products".
Total output of milk in China continues to increased steadily year ony year, and liquid milk consumption has been undergoing the most robust growth among all dairy products. Experts predict that dairy product sales in China will grow at an annual rate of 15 per cent during the next five years. According to government research, by the year 2010, annual milk consumption per capita will reach 32kg in the city and 7kg in rural areas.
Tetra Pak first entered the China market in 1972 and has since established a strategic network of packaging material factories and processing equipment centres in the form of joint ventures or wholly owned foreign enterprises in Beijing, Shanghai, Kunshan, and Foshan.
Tetra Pak began in the early 1950s as one of the first packaging companies for liquid milk. Since then, it has become one of the world’s largest suppliers of packaging systems for milk, fruit juices and drinks, and many other products. Today it operates in more than 165 markets with approximately 20,000 employees.
