Building a global human-centred innovation capability

As the global market leader in carton packaging and food processing solutions, Tetra Pak had built its reputation on engineering excellence and technological innovation.

However, the company recognised that long-term growth required more than supplying world-class packaging systems.

To strengthen relationships with its largest international customers, Tetra Pak wanted to evolve from being perceived as a packaging supplier into a strategic innovation partner—helping customers identify future growth opportunities through consumer insight, packaging innovation and category development.

The challenge was not simply to generate new ideas. It was to create a repeatable innovation approach that helped customers innovate from changing human needs rather than technological possibilities.

TrendsActive designed and led a global innovation programme that ran for more than three years from Tetra Pak’s headquarters in Lund, Sweden, supported by regional programmes across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East.

The programme brought together global key accounts ranging from multinational companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Mengniu to leading regional brands across dairy, juice, plant-based beverages and emerging food categories.

Every programme started from the same principle: innovation begins with understanding people.

Rather than beginning with technology or packaging possibilities, we explored changing human needs, sociocultural trends and future consumer behaviour before translating these insights into innovation opportunities.

The programme combined:

• Human needs and consumer trends
• Socio-cultural insight
• Innovation capability building
• Packaging communication
• Co-creation workshops
• Strategic concept development
• Brand and packaging innovation
• Innovation training for international teams

The objective was to help customers consistently develop innovations that created genuine value for people while strengthening their own brands.

The programme fundamentally changed how innovation conversations were approached.

Instead of asking “What can our technology do?” teams learned to ask “What do people need, and how can our technology create value around those needs?”

This seemingly simple shift transformed innovation from an inside-out process into an outside-in capability.

Technology became the enabler. Human needs became the starting point.

As a result, customers explored opportunities that extended beyond incremental product improvements toward entirely new propositions, packaging concepts, communication strategies and even new market categories.

Over the course of the programme, TrendsActive facilitated innovation programmes with customers from approximately 50 to 100 countries, representing hundreds of international brands across multiple food and beverage categories.

Sessions ranged from intimate executive co-creation workshops with 15–20 participants to international innovation conferences bringing together 200–300 CEOs, senior executives and innovation leaders from around the world.

The work contributed to the development of numerous product, packaging and communication concepts, several of which became the foundation for successful market-leading brands within their respective markets.

Among the initiatives was early strategic work that helped shape the thinking behind Oatly, contributing to the development of one of the world’s most influential plant-based beverage brands.

More importantly, the programme strengthened Tetra Pak’s position as a strategic innovation partner by embedding a human-centred innovation approach across its relationships with global key accounts.

Innovation rarely fails because organisations lack ideas.

It fails because ideas begin with technology instead of people.

When organisations understand changing human needs first, technology becomes a far more powerful tool for creating products, brands and categories that people genuinely value.

By shifting innovation from technology-led to human-led thinking, organisations don’t just improve products—they create new sources of long-term growth.