MET rewards packed sustainability

There is a company that produces state-of-the-art beverage cartons in Hungary, using materials from responsible forest management, and bears in mind the need to recycle beverage cartons as well. This company is Tetra Pak, the winner of this year’s MET Innovation and Talent Prize. The award was presented at the Figyelő TOP 200 Gala event.

Swedish company Tetra Pak, which manufactures and sells beverage cartons, founded its Hungarian subsidiary in 1989. Tetra Pak today is the only multinational company that offers integrated processing, packaging and distribution machinery and factory solutions for the food processing industry. The company has been producing beverage cartons in its Budaörs plant since 1992, and the facility over the past 25 years has grown into the biggest such plant in the region, with more than 90 percent of its output exported.

Similarly to other Tetra Pak plants across the world, the Hungarian facility uses paper from sources certified or surveyed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) to produce beverage cartons. Since the procurement of wood fiber from renewable sources is a priority for the company, almost all of the cardboard material that Tetra Pak uses globally today comes from either FSC-certified or other verified sources.

The plant in Budaörs has also achieved remarkable results in boosting efficiency of production by implementing proposals suggested by its Hungarian employees. Thanks to these measures, the amount of manufacturing waste and scrap was cut by 15% while the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions dropped by 735 tons. The company also contributes to collecting and recycling used cartons, and even educates consumers to further the reduction of the amount of waste produced.

The MET Innovation and Talent Prize, founded in 2015, aims to reward the development of talent, innovative vision and work for a sustainable future. The winner was selected by a panel of senior MET executives from companies listed by Bisnode in its ‘TOP 200’ and ‘Emerging 200’ rankings.

“Nowadays success will only come if innovative vision becomes part of the daily routine. Tetra Pak represents a great example of how innovation and sustainability can be put at the center of everyday operations,” MET Hungary’s CEO Gergely Szabó said.

“Being at the forefront of innovation is our priority and so is finding new ways to serve the rapidly changing needs of customers. We believe that our success must be based on our harmony with the environment and society. Together with our customers we are working to make safe food products available world-wide,” CEO of the Hungarian, Slovak, Czech and Polish Tetra Pak Kinga Sieradzon said.