idea of continuously sealing the packages through the milk while filling the tube in the manner of stuffing sausages. In 1946, the company introduced the first prototype tetrahedron-package filling machine. Operating history AB Tetra Pak was established in Lund, Sweden, in 1951 as a subsidiary to Åkerlund & Rausing. In May of that year, the new packaging system was presented to the press, and in 1952, the first filling machine producing 100 ml cream tetrahedrons was delivered to Lundaortens Mejeriförening, a local dairy. In subsequent years, tetrahedron packages became more and more common in Swedish grocery stores, and in 1954, the first machine producing 500 ml milk packages was sold to a Stockholm dairy. That same year the first machine was exported to Hamburg, Germany, soon to be followed by France (1954), Italy (1956), Switzerland (1957) and later the Soviet Union (1959) and Japan (1962). Rausing strove to improve the Tetra Classic system, beset with many technical problems during the 1950s, and spent enormous amounts on development. The different projects – the tetrahedron, the aseptic packaging technology, Tetra Brik – all demanded large resources and the company had financial troubles well into the 1960s. Tetra Pak's commercial breakthrough did not arrive until the mid-1960s with the new Tetra Brik package, introduced in 1963, and the development of the aseptic technology. To liberate capital, Åkerlund & Rausing was sold in 1965 while AB Tetra Pak was retained. International expansion had begun in the 1960s, when the first production plant outside of Sweden was established in Mexico in 1960, soon to be followed by another in the United States in 1962. In 1964, the first Tetra Classic Aseptic machine outside of Europe was installed in Lebanon. The late-1960s and 1970s saw a global expansion of the company, mainly due to the new Tetra Brik Aseptic package, launched in 1969, which opened up new markets in the developing world and sparked an explosion in sales. Mergers and acquisitions In 1981, Tetra Pak relocated its corporate headquarters to Lausanne, Switzerland, for tax reasons, but retained all research in Lund. For the equivalent of US$2.5 billion, Tetra Pak acquired Alfa-Laval AB in 1991, a Swedish company producing industrial and agricultural equipment and milk separators, world-leading in its industry, in what was at the time Sweden's largest takeover. Since the deal allowed Tetra Pak to integrate Alfa Laval processing know-how, the merger made it possible for