DAD'S TETRA PAK INVENTION MADE BILLIONS..HE GOT pounds 300; How the

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Feb 11, 2001 | by GERARD COUZENS

IT was a simple invention which founded the fortune of Britain's richest man. Yet the lab worker who designed the Tetra Pak milk carton died in obscurity - after making just pounds 300 from the ground-breaking product.

Now the daughter of Erik Wallenberg has spoken for the first time of his resentment at being sidelined while the revolutionary cardboard carton proved a worldwide success.

Swedish-born Hans Rausing, whose family employed Mr Wallenberg and marketed the carton, is Britain's richest man with a pounds 6billion fortune.

Erik's daughter Vibeke said last night: "Although there was no grudge between my family and the Rausing family, I know it upset my father that he didn't get the credit for his invention. It was important to him that what became the Tetra Pak should be recognised as his idea and for most of his life that wasn't the case."

Mr Wallenberg was a young research scientist working for Mr Rausing's father Ruben at the time of his invention in 1944. He signed over the patent to the carton which is now found on supermarket shelves in 165 countries.

Vibeke, a 54-year-old GP in Sweden, recalled: "He joined Mr Rausing's firm as a laboratory worker and was asked to design a new way of packaging milk.

"Obviously the Rausing family had to spend money developing and marketing my father's idea, but I know he was unhappy about the fact that Ruben Rausing got the patent for the pack.

"It would have made him a very rich man."

Hans Rausing, 74, sold his holding in the family business five years ago and now stands to earn millions more from a new container called EcoLean. His fortune is growing at the rate of pounds 1million a day.

He breeds deer and wild boar on his 1,000- acre estate in Wood- hurst, Sussex where he lives with his wife Marit and three children to escape punitive taxation in Sweden.

Mr Wallenberg spent the final months of his life nursing his wife of 56 years, Anna Maria, in a losing battle against cancer before dying from the disease himself in October 1999.

They are buried side- by-side in Lund, southern Sweden.

Vibeke said: "My father was not interested in money - his main concern was that his invention was attributed to someone else."

Although her father was honoured by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering 10 years ago, it was not the worldwide recognition he deserved, she added.

"But knowing my father, I don't think that he would have wanted Mr Rausing's billions."