Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy – is multi-level marketing in trouble?
Tupperware has filed for bankruptcy – is multi-level marketing in trouble?
Tupperware was a pioneer of ‘multi-level marketing’ and enjoyed decades of success. Its demise offers important lessons for marketers in an age of new ‘side hustles’.
Time to move to glass instead of plastic pollution
Plastic on its own is not evil. The problem is single-use plastic. Tupperware lasts decades - I've got a few containers that mum bought 40+ years ago. Hard to imagine that she was younger than I am when she bought these containers, and they outlasted her.
No argument that we have a plastic problem as a society; but I don't really see Tupperware itself as a part of that problem.
Storing and heating food in plastic is a very large source of nanoplastic and microplastic consumption
Dont microwave them, that's for sure
Got any hot tips on high quality affordable glass containers without plastic components? Standard gaskets, or ones which can be cut from silicone and replaced as needed are ok.
Ideally should survive small drops and boiling water.
There are expensive junk ones at my IGA but something like old Pyrex would be good.
Go get some straight-sided canning jars. Look for jars with no shoulders, like the half-pint size normal mouth lids or the pint size wide mouth lids.
Jars with shoulders are not freezer safe; the necks prevent the contents from expanding as they freeze so the jar cracks. Straight sided jars are tapered on the inside so the contents can expand up into the head space of the jar safely.
Canning jars are quite thick, they're intended to be handled and used for years on end. They aren't indestructible but they'll survive handling that would crack a grocery store pickle jar. They're specifically designed to be repeatedly boiled and even pressure cooked.
The lid specs for these jars is a LONG running standard, canning lids are probably carried by your favorite grocery store at least some of the year, and you can get reusable non-canning lids to fit these jars in a variety of materials and styles.
I'm a cheapskate with this, ended up just cleaning out pickle jars when they are used up and reusing them until the lid seal degrades. Apparently with new replacement jar lids they can be used for longer term canning, I only use them for leftover meals.
Home canner here:
It's not a great idea to re-use commercial food jars for home canning. You are correct in that you must use 2-piece lids for the home canning process, and the jar must have one of the two correct diameter mouths and the correct threads to engage with the ring. Most pickle jars have multi-lug lids (you only have to turn them a fraction of a turn to release them) so they aren't compatible.
They're also not meant to withstand the rigors of repeated home canning. Assuming you have a jar with lids compatible with Ball lids, you'll notice they're thinner than canning jars. They're more likely to break during the process.
Finally, heat penetration is a factor. The size and shape of canning jars is important, processing times are calculated to guarantee the entire contents of the jar have reached a high enough temperature for long enough that the contents have been sterilized. Commercial jars may not conform to those size or shape standards, so especially with solid foods like fruit or vegetable slices you can't guarantee the entire batch has been preserved in strangely shaped or sized jars.
Canning jars are widely available and inexpensive, just buy a set.
Re-using them for leftovers like tupperware is perfectly fine; I actually use salsa jars to mix wood finish in instead of buying the buckets they have for that purpose at the hardware store.
It’s not the pollution of glass that’s as much a concern as the lack of materials. The world is running out of sand.
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/problem-our-dwindling-sand-reserves
I sure hope so.
oh, no!!!
anyway...
pyramid schemes. they are called pyramid schemes and yes, they are bound to fail.
at least tupperware sold quality products i guess?
Not really. It's weird Tupperware was still doing any of that instead of just selling at stores exclusively or even opening a Tupperware store made up of everything from food containers to big storage bins and such.
But MLMs are very much a thing. My wife is one of those people who somehow makes bank selling Tea to women who are running to hand her hundreds of dollars per order without her making much of an effort.
Tupperware was being sold in Target. Their bankruptcy has nothing to do with MLM.