Tupperware party's over for New Zealand

The party's over for the world's most famous plastic container brand in New Zealand.

After nearly 50 years, Tupperware is pulling its products out of Aotearoa - with sales due to stop this October.

Plastic storage containers and gadgets made by the Tupperware brand were often sold at face-to-face parties hosted by women in their own homes.

"Tupperware parties" – which peaked in New Zealand in the 1970s – often began with games intended as ice-breakers, says former Tupperware demonstrator Jillian Earle.

There was always one woman who'd turn up at a Tupperware party with her arms crossed and not even pick up the catalogue, Earle tells Susie Ferguson, yet usually she managed to intrigue people with the Smooth Chopper – "a little thing that chops onions really really easily".

"You'd get them to hold it and engage with it. Usually, you'd end up with them buying something at the end of the night."

The beauty of selling Tupperware was the ability to show people how the products worked in person, Jillian says.

"You actually got to demonstrate the value of the product and it's really hard to do that online … if you're looking at something online it's a very flat interaction, really."

Self-confessed "Tupperware addict" Nik Watts has never been to a Tupperware party but is such a fan she even has a Tupperware-inspired tattoo.

The brightly-coloured coloured plastic containers once found in many a caravan and grandparent's kitchens have a certain Kiwiana appeal, she told Karyn Hay.

For 15 years, she has trawled Dunedin's secondhand shops for retro Tupperware containers from decades gone by, especially orange and yellow ones with signature 'sunburst' lids.