Tupperware holds food and memories as container business faces possible collapse

Tupperware, founded 77 years ago, announced this week it was likely to go bust unless it could raise emergency funds. Shares crashed almost 50 per cent during the week after the company told investors there "was substantial doubt about its ability to continue".

While sales increased during the pandemic, I guess people were at home cooking and needed to store all those leftovers, in the past 12 months shares have dropped 95 per cent as the company apparently struggles against "more innovative products" which are being promoted on social media. Damn the social media generation. For so many things.

For my generation, your first piece of Tupperware marked a move into adulthood. Perhaps you inherited a container, one of those storage containers with the fluted, ridged lids that you burped, that your mother would fill with ginger slice. Now it was your job to fend for yourself.

Or maybe you were brave enough to host your first party. Invited all your girlfriends over for some Jatz and cheese while you inspected the plastic.

In 1946 Earl Tupper invented the burping airtight seal but it wasn't selling well in retail stores and the first demonstration was held in the United States in 1948. The first Australian Tupperware party was held by Mary Paton in her mother's home in Camberwell, Victoria, in 1961 after Mary had met the then international president Hamer Wilson in the late 1950s. When she moved back to Australia she held the first party and her sister Ruth became Australia's first demonstrator.

I can still remember my first party. A few young friends who'd recently moved out of home. From the first time we played a little game in order to win some trinket I was hooked. They soon became a regular event.

I wouldn't be far from wrong to suggest my Tupperware parties were almost the thing of legend. It was a rite of passage for many of my young hockey friends, as I welcomed them to adulthood with an invitation. It was never about forcing people to buy things, always more about getting together for some fun, but I dare suggest hundreds of kitchen cupboards in Canberra have a piece of Tupperware bought at one of my parties.

Because Tupperware is so bloody useful. I'll admit I freak out when I see people storing things in leftover Chinese containers. Yes, they do a fine job but there's something about a firm piece of rigid plastic that makes me feel grown up.

My pantry is full of modular mates of all sizes, with lids of a matching colour, and yes, things are labelled. My freezer keepers store leftovers, I heat them up in the heat n eats.

My children started with sip n care tumblers and took lunch to school in a sandwich keeper plus with accompanying drink bottle.

When we split belongings post-divorce it was hard to decide what pieces I wanted to let go. I was the baker so I got the sifter, the silicone molds, the containers a perfect size for a slab of brownies. Some leftover-sized containers found a new home. It's funny now as the kids come back and forth to eat, that the containers are once again working across two homes as I send them back with leftovers. It's kind of nice we're once again a (blended) Tupperware family.

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When I downsized, nothing got to come along unless I found the appropriate lid. There are few things that bring me more joy than organising the Tupperware drawer. Most things made the move.

I have a pick a deli that represents summer, when a tin of beetroot makes an appearance for burgers. I have a mandolin that I sliced a finger on one Christmas lunch. Memories literally ingrained.

I even have a Shape-O toy, the iconic red and blue sphere that you fill with shapes, tucked away in the linen cupboard for my first grandchild. For I intended that Tupperware would have a place in the next phase of my family. I've long been a believer that women are the keepers of memories. We're the ones who tuck away pieces of art the kids have drawn, keep baby clothes in shoe boxes, strands from the first hair cut, birthday cards they made.

Is it strange that I've stored so many family memories in Tupperware containers?