Tupperware files for bankruptcy as sales slump

Tupperware, a household brand once so popular it became the name of an entire product category, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday as consumers’ evolving shopping behaviors and increased competition led to slumping sales.

“Over the last several years, the Company’s financial position has been severely impacted by the challenging macroeconomic environment,” Laurie Ann Goldman, president and chief executive of Tupperware, said in a statement. “As a result, we explored numerous strategic options and determined this is the best path forward.”

Tupperware, which came close to finding itself in this position last year, will seek court approval to start a sale process for the business to protect its brand and advance its “transformation into a digital-first, technology-led company,” the company said.

The Orlando-based food storage company will also seek court approval to continue operating during the bankruptcy process, including continuing to pay employees, as well as compensating vendors and suppliers for goods and services provided on or after the filing date.

“We plan to continue serving our valued customers with the high-quality products they love and trust throughout this process,” Goldman added.

A retailer or another homewares group may be interested in purchasing the brand, said Neil Saunders, managing director of analytics firm GlobalData, but only for a low price, given the brand’s waning growth prospects.

The company narrowly avoided bankruptcy just over a year ago. In August 2023, four months after Tupperware expressed “substantial doubt” about its viability amid declining sales, the company announced a deal to restructure its debt. Tupperware reduced its interest payments on debt by $150 million, secured a borrowing capacity of up to $21 million, cut its debt by $55 million and got a deadline extension to repay $348 million in interest and fees to the 2027 fiscal year.

Executives were “confident” in the restructuring plan, chief financial officer Mariela Matute said in a news release at the time.

A year later, the plan didn’t have legs to sustain the company. In June, Tupperware reported that it was shuttering its only U.S. facility, in Hemingway, S.C., and would start laying off almost 150 employees later this month and through early next year, Retail Dive reported.

Inventor Earl Tupper founded Tupperware in 1946, but the company only took off when he hired saleswoman Brownie Wise in the early 1950s. She recruited women across the country to host their own Tupperware parties, or at the homes of friends, neighbors and family, creating flexible side hustles that gave many of them financial freedom, said Laurie Kahn, who wrote, produced and directed the documentary “Tupperware!”

“This was a period when a woman couldn’t get a credit card unless her husband co-signed; it was a period when bankers wouldn’t loan to women without a man,” Kahn said. “So to have a business of your own and to be earning money that you could use to buy a house, to send your kids to college, to go on vacations you never dreamed you could go on - it was really life-changing for these women.”

But the business model that once enabled the company’s rise eventually led to its fall. Once Tupper’s patents expired in the 80s, legions of copycats began entering the market, and the company failed to innovate or expand into other houseware categories, Kahn said. Despite adapting to direct-to-consumer sales and stocking shelves in Target in recent years, increased competition and diminishing nostalgia around the brand led to declining sales.

Consumers are also seeking inexpensive alternatives, Saunders said. “Competition has intensified over recent years with the rise of cheaper platforms like Temu, and with retailers like Target innovating more with their own home storage and kitchenware brands,” he said.

Still, the brand is sentimental for many generations, Kahn said.

“Everybody has a Tupperware story to tell about their mother or their aunt; somebody went to a party, or gave a party, and they had a piece of Tupperware … that they remember vividly from their childhood,” she said. “It’s amazing how it permeates the culture and people’s sentimental memories of their childhood.”