The Tupperware party is over

Anyone who has decluttered and made those sometimes heartbreaking and difficult choices about material possessions will know how challenging it is in the beginning and how liberating and rewarding it is in the end.

The realisation that we actually needed much less sets in as we admit that those umpteen salad dishes and Tupperware containers in their allocated cupboards, stacked one above the other (creative and beautiful indeed), just remained in the stack while we selected the same top three most of the time.

I recently downsized and had to edit. When it came to Tupperware, I had to be ruthless. It was easier with the ones whose plastic looked yellowish and showed scratches on the outside. They resembled my own face, with its unwanted wrinkles.

It was hard to part with at first, but my life had to be simplified and from now on, I would use Jiffy plastic bags for storage. In the event of decanting soups and other pot foods into containers, I would use my salvaged Tupperware and the other much cheaper plastic brands on the market. After all, they worked as well. In some cases there are so many disposable versions, I have made them my go-to varieties because I don’t need to wash them.

Even when the sweet lady tried to sell me some Tupperware from her cute booth outside KosherWorld, I resisted in the knowledge that it would be more expensive than my perfectly satisfying new brands, already on my grocery list.

I must admit that I did give a thought to how much the rent of the Tupperware cubicle could be, and this brought me to the thought of the once-upon-a-time Tupperware parties I had hosted or attended. The consideration of what sort of tea and goodies I would have on my dining room table and where I would set up the Tupperware. The perk of being the hostess was that, if the sales from the event were good, she would get a lovely new version of a container or dispenser or other Tupperware gift. Of course the seller would receive a tidy commission.

I remember the culture and opportunity of those parties. Even at breaks in the working routines of the corporate world, employees and sellers of the brand would make hay while the sun shone and earn themselves extra money, over and above their monthly salaries.

It was a win for stay-at-home moms and unemployed housewives. A way to earn some income, some Tupperware, and some time out of the mundane routines. There was social connection, lovely tea parties, and lots of fun and insights into what was available in the kitchen and homeware industry. (MasterChef eat your heart out!)

I got involved even though, at the time, I worked as a teacher, came home to my own kids, and prepared a yummy tea, between marking books and bribing my children to behave as I wanted.

Now, like one of my favourite mantras, “This too shall pass”, Tupperware, its iconic status and specific selling and marketing style, have come to an end. Decades of stable and mostly reliable business practice are waving goodbye and succumbing to the competition of a plethora of similar (but not as classy) products.

Online shopping has pipped it at the post and the age of instant gratification and mass competition has put a marvellous invention to rest.

To Earl S Tupper, a huge thank you! As an innovative chemist, you invented the first bell-shaped container in the 1940s in Massachusetts not long after the Great Depression. Your benign aim was to design an airtight seal for plastic storage containers (like those on a paint tin) because it would help war-weary families save money on costly food waste. The bowl created for this was called the Wonderlier Bowl and it changed the way the world stored food. Your Tupperware became a fabric of Americana and spread to the rest of the world.

Through your invention, women found a marvellous way to make money and develop their innate business savvy. An entire culture developed, and has lasted for more than six decades.

I am pleased that I was a part of it for a while, but know that, like so many inventions and iconic products, my own children and definitely grandchildren won’t have a clue about any of it. Archaic, personas non grata, dinosaurs.

To Laurie Goldman, I feel for you in your capacity as president and chief executive of Tupperware Brands Corporation. When the macroeconomic environment challenges such a giant in the direct sales industry and renders it bankrupt, it must be sad. But undoubtedly someone of your ilk will make another plan.

I suppose everything has its time. In Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 it says “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”

The Tupperware party may be over, plastics are not popular in most of their forms, but while it was happening, a good time was had by all, and plenty of iMali, tshelete, dollars, bucks, pounds, rubels, rands, shekels, and gelt were made.

• Roz Basserabie, a devoted mother and grandmother, is a speaker whose purpose in life is to inspire others with positivity and innovative ideas towards living creatively. She is a published author of two books, with the third one on the way.