Wow, this one brings back memories of playing Atari in the bedroom with the cousins while Mom and Aunts took turns having the parties. The snacks were the best! tho And yes, Aunt still has a lot of hers. LOL. Though I heard they quit the parties in the 90s, there was a Tupperware kiosk in our mall for a while, but it had some things like the cup sets and a book to order from.
here’s some reactions
even in India where it was just as popular as it was in the us
even in India where it was just as popular as it was in the us
One of the early episodes of Stranger Things showed the exact Tupperware pitcher that we had in the 80s. The one with the lid where you press a button on the top and it unseals, with a kinda radial accordion thing on the bottom of the lid. The color was the same hideous shade of… I dunno, an olive-tan.
Haven’t bought any Tupperware-adjacent items since the semi-disposable kind came out. The much thinner plastic doesn’t impact performance any. And I haven’t bought any of those since I started going to food trucks more often and acquired a collection of sealable plastic containers.
If you asked me yesterday, I would have guessed that Tupperware was either owned by some other larger corporation or else had just sold their name by this point.
I don’t doubt that they make/made a quality product but I also assume most people’s quality ceiling on storage containers is pretty low. With fewer people cooking full on meals at home these days, there’s less need for an array of storage containers and a set from Costco will do the trick. Heck, a set of “disposable” containers like Ziploc or Saran Wrap sells at the grocery store probably works for most people. Spending 10x more on a bowl to hold your leftover UberEats Chinese food is a whole lot of diminishing returns.
There’s a lot of stuff where you feel like it was made better in the Good Ole Days but now is made cheaply and just doesn’t measure up. Food storage containers isn’t one of those things though (at least for me); I’ve never looked at my $30 set of snap-lid storage containers and felt they were inadequate for the job and wished for a $100 set of Tupperware brand bowls.
I’m a 70’s kid, and I’m not crying. In fact I’m seriously glad that the, “party,” thing for all items that had parties is slowly dying.
Parties = getting as many friends as you can to come to your house, and buy crap they don’t/want/need/could get cheaper and more conveniently somewhere else. Then trying to get at least one of these friends to have her own, “party,” sucking in her friends and family, all so you can get “free” "discounted"crap.
A not complete list: tupperware, lb price, make-up, crystal and glassware, home decorating, adult toys edible underwear etc. I’ve been resentfully, invited and, “entertained,” at all of them, and probably missed some.
Rubbermaid makes containers similar to Tupperware that are available in stores. Also, the old model of Tupperware parties depended on housewives who wanted to earn a little money, while today most women have jobs. If Tupperware had changed from MLM to regular retail marketing, they might have survived. As it is, I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did.
Also, some (by no means all) of the supposedly one-time use containers that supermarkets and delis package food items in are reusable and in some cases surprisingly sturdy, which probably undercuts the market for such things. They’re also surprisingly expensive. I thought they might cost the store something like a cent or two each, but even in large quantities they might run to 50 cents or even a dollar or more each.
Friends of ours have a Tupperware kit they carry in their car, always. If we go out to eat with them she runs out to the car for Tupperware to bring her leftovers home in.
We had a lot of Tupperware as a kid. I never loved it. I now exclusively use takeout food containers. The “bowls” (tubs?) come in 1, 1.5, 2, 3, and 4 cup sizes and they all stack and they all use the same lid! And they are much easier to clean than tupperware. I also like the “one dinner” trays although they, annoyingly, come in all sorts of minor variations and the lids aren’t interchangeable.
They actually didn’t ever stop the parties, although they became way less common than they used to be. They always had “brochure parties” where the hostess gave people brochures and took orders. And they introduced “online parties” where the “hostess” got a special online link so she could get credit for the sales from her “party” but I’m sure those didn’t work as well as in person parties. The last online party I was “invited” to , I bought one item, my sister bought one item - and that was it. I definitely would have bought more than that at an in-person party.
