The rise and fall of Tupperware

The byword for food storage has filed for bankruptcy – was it a victim of its own success?

Photo collage of a woman at a Tupperware party wearing a fanciful hat made of different Tupperware pieces, and various plastic containers around her
(Image credit: Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images)

Shares in Tupperware have fallen by more 50% after the food storage brand filed for bankruptcy last week. The brand's very name "conjures images of plastic food boxes" and buying parties in "comfortable suburban homes", said the Financial Times. And for the generations of people who grew up with Tupperware as a fact of life, said The New York Times, the news has "unlocked an airtight seal of nostalgia".

Living room sales

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.