The “Tupperware parties” are over. The legendary plastic container company, so famous that it is the origin of the word “táper” to refer to this type of product, is about to declare bankruptcy and seek legal protection, according to Bloomberg. An expected blow after years of permanent crisis, but no less harsh for a company about to turn 80.
The container manufacturer has debts worth $700 millionand this week it broke the terms of the agreement with its debtors to return them, even after having already renegotiated it this year, in the face of the endless collapse of its sales. The company had already warned in March that its liquidity was lowand that the slightest complication would force them to lower the curtain.
Tupperware has been warning for years about the constant decline in its revenues. The Covid crisis interrupted its famous “parties” during which its sellers promoted their products, and the competition destroyed its economic model. Why go to a party to buy containers when any supermarket, physical or online, sells them in bulk, and with materials less polluting than plastic?
In 2022, the company announced that it had reduced its sales workforce by almost 20%, while retaining 300,000 independent sellers affiliated with the brand. The situation has not improved and, in June of this year, it presented its plan to close its only remaining U.S. plant and lay off its 150 employees. But the trend was already irreversible: practically the only thing that has value is its name. If the curator does not perform a miracle, it is likely that many container companies will end up fighting to become the “heir” to the brand founded by Earl Tupper in 1946.
