Anyone who makes a ‘mood board’ of the period of prosperity growth after the Second World War puts together pictures of mopeds, miniskirts and long hair (men down, women up). From couches and televisions in the living room. And in the kitchen: Tupperware.
Tupperware? Haven’t heard of it in a long time, or maybe never.
Simply put, tupperware was little more than the name for plastic food storage boxes and containers. The content could be anything. Shredded onions and dried apples, liters of pea soup and complete cherry pies could be kept fresh and therefore stored longer. At least, that was the brand promise. The trays and containers came in endless shapes and sizes, in a wide spectrum of cheerful colours.
But tupperware stood for more. It was a luxury product – and that was still suspect, or at least controversial, at the time. Tupperware entered the Dutch market in 1962, after a triumphant march that had begun in the United States.
Perhaps now is the time to label the 1960s and 1970s as the ‘Tupperware Age’. These are the years leading up to the throwaway society. This was the storage box society, for lunchboxes full of sandwiches, for all kinds of chopped and sliced foodstuffs. Filling all those boxes was still pre-eminently a woman’s job.
Culture struggle
Tupperware has been in the spotlight again for several weeks. International media (The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Le Figaro, El Pas) now report the throes of a once strong global brand. The reports are about the share price on Wall Street being halved, about the flying in of ‘turn around advisers’ from no less than four expensive consultancy firms, who must avert the danger of bankruptcy. Or, in German Handelblatt: ‘Einste Kultfirma in Geldnöten.’
Indeed, a culture war – that was Tupperware. I remember conversations from my childhood, the sixties. I had a tupperware aunt, while my own mother was not a fan of this plastic. She was not outspoken in her disgust. But aunt’s enthusiastic stories about the great leap forward in her kitchen were lost on my mother.
The social discord, pro or contra Tupperware, can be read between the lines in one simple message in the Leeuwarder Courant of April 21, 1967. ‘Two ladies injured in collision’ reads the headline, followed by some telling details. “The ladies are demonstrators for Tupperware, a kind of plastic.” A ‘Miss De B. (49)’ drove the new car of ‘Mrs S. (40)’ without a driving licence. She took a right turn too late and too tight, causing ‘the ladies’ to crash into a transformer house, resulting in a concussion and a bleeding head wound.
So far the facts, which have undoubtedly elicited strong opinions from many a Frisian reader. Because yes, traveling by car for a Tupperware demonstration? ‘No need…’ Having your new car driven by an inexperienced, unauthorized miss? ‘Woman behind the wheel…’, who was also not allowed to drive at all. Spot on spot.
The plastic storage boxes were not for sale in shops. Where is it? In living rooms, at ‘tupperware parties’.
It turned out to be a sophisticated sales method. A hostess took care of a well-filled living room full of sisters, neighbors and friends. A Tupperware demonstrator drove up in a wagon loaded with desirable new boxes and cases.
It could be that simple, and that smart, in the social dynamics that followed. Longer freshness, easy to store, shopping less often. Tupperware knew the needs of ‘the happy housewife’. Including the coziness of a ladies’ wreath, a cup of coffee, with dazzling stories from well-spoken saleswomen.
And then came: bidding against each other. Not buying anything was rude. Going home with one simple box soon raised the suspicion that hubby’s salary bag was meager. This is how every party worked towards its peak. The more the guests bought, the bigger the Tupperware gift the hostess could choose. And was there sometimes a lady present who wanted to be the hostess next time…?
This ‘sales’ method was more than clever. Because another motivation helped Tupperware move forward. The party sale gave the brand a halo of exclusivity. The stuff could not be purchased by just anyone. For that you had to have the right contacts in the stronghold of women who were housekeepers. Watch me …! And look Tupperware, which was able to keep the price artificially high as a result.
read also: A plastic buffer against the outside world
Sinful togetherness
The fact that Tupperware kept people busy can be seen from a look at the family and women’s magazines from the 1960s. ‘For you, madam consumere’ – that’s the name of the women’s section St Eloy, a weekly magazine for Roman Catholic metalworkers. It describes the Tupperware parties as a sinful get-together. A quote to this effect, published in February 1966, can be found in several magazines: “Every woman [heeft] after all, the tendency to want to compete a bit against friends and acquaintances. (..) Isn’t it really a ridiculous thing when you allow clever saleswomen to make money on the weak sides of your character?”
There is also benevolent review. Clear sight, a magazine for Catholic workers, sees an ‘attractive’ side to the sales parties in September 1966. „[Die] lies in the individual approach of the housewife: she is informed as an individual, not as one of the crowd, as in department stores and shops. The demonstrator gives her information that she would never get in a shop.’ With a warning finger: ‘Women buy things that they can’t actually buy.’
It may not even be the pedantic tone that feels so dated. It is the division of roles between women and men, which would clearly still have a long way to go towards emancipation and – who knows – gender neutrality. A text like this, with which Tupperware itself advertised in 1965, filled many a women’s magazine: “Men are masters of pampering, but they also like to be pampered themselves. A woman who understands that always conjures up something new on the table. Her ‘right hand’ is called Tupperware. It keeps salads wonderfully fresh, salty snacks crispy and an extra tasty snack for the office is no problem!”
Kitchen knives
The first cracks in the Tupperware global brand began to appear in the 1990s. The company changes ownership several times. In several countries, in addition to the plastic containers, kitchen knives and appliances will also be part of the range. The growth curves of the first decades are no longer achieved.
In the 21st century, Tupperware mainly makes the news when sales are stopped in a country – and this was the first in the British Isles, in 2003. In the Netherlands, the Tupperware parties manage to survive until the spring of 2021. As was the case for many the coronalockdown is also the death blow for this moribund activity.
Tupperware’s steady decline cannot be explained by a single cause. An important factor is undoubtedly that the full-time housewife now forms a minority in society. Women, who now do paid work, are not easy to prod for any coffee or tea during the day.
My mother saw that coming half a century ago. She scoffed at the Tupperware parties: “Don’t those women have anything better to do?”