Who Owns Tupperware?

Tupperware was invented by Earl Silas Tupper, a New Hampshire-born chemist and inventor who had worked at DuPont in the 1930s. Tupper founded the Tupperware Plastics Company in 1946, having developed a method for purifying polyethylene slag, an industrial waste product, into a flexible, odorless, non-toxic plastic material he called "Poly-T." This material was used to create the first Tupperware containers.

The containers' most distinctive feature was the airtight seal, which Tupper developed by studying the design of paint can lids. The seal required users to press down on the lid and then "burp" it by lifting one edge slightly to release excess air before pressing it closed, creating a vacuum seal that kept food fresh significantly longer than conventional containers. This "burping seal" became the brand's most recognized functional attribute and the subject of countless demonstrations at Tupperware parties.

Tupperware products were initially sold through retail stores in the late 1940s, but sales were disappointing. Consumers found the containers difficult to understand without a demonstration of the sealing mechanism. The retail model was abandoned in 1951 when Earl Tupper recognized that the products sold far better through direct demonstration.

The transformation of Tupperware into a direct selling phenomenon was largely the work of Brownie Wise, a Detroit-based single mother who had been selling Tupperware through home parties with remarkable success. Tupper hired Wise in 1951 as vice president of Tupperware Home Parties, making her one of the first women to appear on the cover of Business Week magazine in 1954. Wise developed the Tupperware party model into a systematic business opportunity for women, providing them with a way to earn income at a time when professional opportunities for women were severely limited.

The Tupperware party model became a cultural phenomenon in 1950s America. Hostesses invited friends and neighbors to their homes for social gatherings at which a Tupperware dealer demonstrated the products and took orders. The model was enormously successful, and by the mid-1950s Tupperware had removed its products from retail stores entirely, selling exclusively through the party plan.

Earl Tupper sold the company to Rexall Drug Company in 1958 for approximately $9 million, simultaneously dismissing Brownie Wise, whose contributions to the company's success have been more widely recognized in subsequent decades. Under Rexall and subsequent owners, Tupperware continued to expand globally through the 1960s and 1970s, becoming one of the most recognized American consumer brands in international markets.

The company was renamed Tupperware Brands Corporation and became publicly traded, reaching peak revenue of approximately $2.6 billion in 2013. Through the 2010s, the company faced increasing competitive pressure from retail food storage brands including Rubbermaid (Newell Brands), OXO (Helen of Troy), and Ziploc (SC Johnson), as well as from the broader decline of direct selling as a business model in developed markets.

The COVID-19 pandemic initially provided a brief boost to Tupperware's sales as consumers focused on home cooking and food storage, but the underlying structural challenges of the direct selling model and the company's debt load proved insurmountable. In September 2024, Tupperware Brands Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing approximately $818 million in total debt and years of declining sales.

Regent LP acquired the Tupperware brand and assets out of the bankruptcy proceedings in late 2024, with stated intentions to revitalize the brand through a combination of direct selling, retail distribution, and e-commerce channels.