Starting the first week of November, Tetra Pak India Ltd , the liquid food packaging machine and materials manufacturer is launching a Tetra Pak Carnival, a series of fun and activity filled events for school students and their parents in four cities of the country. The aim: to get the message across that its ‘six-layered pre-laminated aseptic’ tetrapaks keep food safe, hygienic and healthy.

The Carnival, complete with contests like antakshari, Western music, basket ball, ‘tennis ball cricket’, and a quiz contest with celebrity quiz master Derek O’Brien, will tour Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Calcutta by December, with plans to repeat performance in many more cities in the new calendar year.

Sharing equal visibility with Tetra Pak will be its customers Parle Agro Products, Enkay Foods, Britannia, Tropicana Foods & Beverages, Godrej. These companies will be displaying and distributing their products free: Frooti, Onjus, Real, XS, Safal, Good Life, Zip Sip, Yo, Tropicana … The food and beverages companies will benefit from the extra brand endorsement from this event.

Lars Nygren, newly appointed managing director of Tetra Pak India, Lars Nygren, is unequivocal about involving his direct customers – the food and beverages manufacturers. "We can only grow along with our customers," he asserts. "We would like to work much closer to our customers."

Hence Tetra Pak, which has budgeted Rs 40 lakh for the event, is happy to share space with its customers. "Our customers will participate with their merchandise, we run the show," Surendra Menon, vice president, marketing, reveals. "This way we get to interact directly with the consumers and obtain instant feedback." For, as Nygren puts it, "People buy the products, not the packaging."