Robert Francis Holland, whose early research as a Cornell University food science professor helped usher in the age of the aseptic milk carton in the United States, died in Ithaca, Jan. 16, 2000. He was 91.

Every schoolchild during the last 50 years who has opened a small carton of milk in a lunch cafeteria can thank Holland. He pioneered by bringing a prototype Tetra Pak milk-carton filling machine, the first in the nation, to Cornell University's dairy plant in 1956. While Holland did not invent the Tetra Pak carton -- a container shaped like a tetrahedron, or four-sided triangle -- he was the first in the United States to test its efficacy. Because it was considered somewhat unwieldy for milk, the tetrahedron-shaped container ultimately gave way in popularity to the gable-top aseptic container.

Prior to the introduction of aseptic packaging, glass and wax-coated paperboard containers were used to dispense milk. But glass bottles had to be returned, cleaned and sterilized and wax containers often left wax floating in the milk. At that time, the milk's shelf-life was 2 to 4 days. In the mid-1950s, aseptic containers -- plastic-lined paperboard, heat-sealed for freshness -- were introduced.

Using a Tetra Pak machine in the Cornell Dairy Plant, Holland and William F. Shipe Jr., also a Cornell professor of food science, studied the effectiveness of various plastic and paper containers in the blocking transmission of light, odor and gas.

Another of Holland's major legacies was developing the dairy and food inspection training program for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets in 1963. The training program is in place today.

Holland was born on Sept. 21, 1908, in Holley, N.Y. He earned his bachelor's (1936), master's (1938) and doctoral (1940) degrees from Cornell University, where he studied under James M. Sherman, who identified the bacterium that causes the holes in Swiss cheese and is named for him, Proprianum shermani. Holland served as an instructor at Cornell from 1935 to 1939 and as a research associate (1939-41) at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. In 1945 he became a full Cornell professor in what was then called the Department of Dairy Industry. In 1955 he became department head, a position he held until his retirement in 1972, and he oversaw the department's focus on dairy research change to a broader range of research. Under Holland's leadership, the department was renamed the Department of Food Science.

He was a member of American Dairy Science Association, the Institute of Food Technologists, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Society of American Bacteriologists.

Holland is survived by his children, Maj. Robert G. Holland of Zephyrhills, Fla., Daniel M. Holland of Trumansburg, N.Y., Deborah Holland Stewart of Burke, Va., and James S. Holland of Ilion, N.Y. He is also survived by several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. His wife, Ruth Holland, died in 1992