Published 1 day ago

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The Tupperware party is making money with a modern upgrade.

Massachusetts native Maggie Weber started hosting her own Tupperware parties in 1987, gaining her following by cold calling, knocking on doors and passing out flyers. She went on to host intimate dinner parties at home with neighbors, demonstrating recipes for pineapple salsa or Buffalo chicken dip. It became her side hustle, she said, to get the cabinet container staples at a 25 percent discount at first.

“I got into it because I was a stay-at-home mom and I needed to go out at night,” Webber, 57, told FOX Business of attending the social gatherings with neighbors before hosting her own. “I probably made $75 on my first Tupperware party.”

After years of selling its products directly through sales reps like Weber, Tupperware started selling items direct-to-consumer in October amid declining sales.

Now, shoppers can buy the home goods directly from Tupperware’s revamped website and, for a limited time, at its first-ever retail popup called TuppSoho through Dec. 22 in New York. Customers can attend hands-on product demonstrations in the brand’s temporary shop affixed with Instagramable neon signs and retro art.

Weber says she still hosts two Tupperware parties per week but has upgraded her business model by building her own YouTube channel last year where she'll promote products and throw occasional virtual parties on Facebook. Her last party raked in $700, she said. Now, she manages a team of more than 100 "hosts" and earns a commission off their sales.

"I was over six figures on my taxes. My accountant looked at me and said, 'From Tupperware?'" Weber said.

Tupperware debuted in 1946 as plastic food-storage containers and became a household brand in the 1950s and 1960s, becoming synonymous with plastic containers used in households. For years, it operated as a direct sales model with “hosts,” particularly women, selling products at parties for friends and neighbours to shop the product line.

Like Weber, South Carolina native Corinne Brown has leveraged social media to expand her business, becoming a culinary influencer of sorts to promote some of her best-selling products, like the brand's $200 MicroPro Grill or a $40 cold brew carafe.

Now, the brand seems to be trying to fit in with a younger generation of eco-conscious, anti-plastic consumers advertising its pop-up as having “gifts that serve a purpose to reduce waste on our environment with designs meant to reduce single-use plastic and food waste at every turn,” encouraging customers to use the hashtag #TuppSoho at the popup.

“They’re tapping into young people’s need to be more environmentally and socially conscious, and their craving for connection,” marketing expert Chuck Welch, co-founder of strategy consultancy Rupture Studio, who has worked with companies like Nike and Pepsi, told FOX Business.

- Chuck Welch/Rupture Studio

Tupperware announced in January it would "significantly reduce plastic and food waste by 2025" and is selling sustainable products like its Eco water bottle, which replaces single-use plastic bottles, at its popup.

"We’re embracing our natural place in reducing food waste and single-use waste by continuing to design products meant to save consumers time, money, space, food and energy," Asha Gupta, a spokeswoman for the brand, said in a statement.