THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Monday, March 9, 2020 |B3
spent about 18 months in the
job. The company is searching
for a permanent leader.
“I don’t think there’s anyone
there who understands direct
sellers,” said Douglas Lane, an
independent analyst who fol-
lowed the company for years
and dropped his coverage last
month, citing its challenges.
The Tupperware leadership
teams have extensive experi-
ence with direct sales, Mr.
O’Leary, the interim CEO, said.
At an investor conference In
December, Mr. O’Leary said the
company must find new ways
to reach consumers, noting
that less than 5% of sales oc-
cur outside its direct-selling
force. “I think we’re just start-
ing to scratch the surface,” he
said then.
Consumers haven’t stopped
buying reusable storage con-
tainers. U.S. shoppers were ex-
pected to buy $1.44 billion of
food containers last year, ac-cording to estimates from con-
sumer-research firm Euromon-
itor—an increase from $1.35
billion in 2014.
But other companies, in-
cluding Newell Brands Inc.’s
Rubbermaid unit and Clorox
Co.’s Glad business, have
staked out turf with their own
storage offerings. Both brands
are sold in stores and on web-
sites like Amazon.
Pampered Chef, the direct
seller of kitchenwares owned
by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.,
said in September it gets more
than half of its business from
its digital operation, up from
10% in 2014.
Consumers’ options are
plentiful. Discount retailer Dol-
lar General Corp. sells a range
of containers starting at $1
each, according to its website;
Amazon.com Inc. offers a set
of 24 containers for $42.99
made by the owner of the Py-
rex glass brand.
“If you go to the younger
age group, you have to teach
them, because everything is so
cheap and so available,” said
Michele Womble, who has sold
Tupperware for more than a
decade and runs a showroom
in Marietta, Ga.
Some sales agents say their
businesses are growing.
Beth Rosa, 59 years old,
who has been selling Tupper-
ware in Connecticut for about
eight years, said her network
generated about $600,000 in
sales last year and the goal is
to double that amount in- She lauded newer prod-
ucts from the company, like a
grill designed for the micro-
wave.
Tupperware has broadened
its offerings to include beauty
products and tried different
strategies to generate better
results. But finding new ways
to stand out won’t be easy,
former sellers say, given the
company’s association with its
core products and old-school
parties.
“You can get so many types
of Tupperware products on
Amazon now. It’s hard to dis-
tinguish why this is better,”
said Ms. White, the former
Tupperware saleswoman.
Tupperware Loses Its Grip on Consumers
Brand struggles as
parties to sell products
fall out of favor and
e-commerce rises
The company, once built on a network of mostly suburban women,now gets most revenue outside North America, A Tupperware party in 1989.CRAIG GOLDING/FAIRFAX MEDIA/GETTY IMAGESTupperware’sactivesellersSources: the company (sellers); FactSet (performance)*2019 is through the fiscal third quarter9000100200300400500600700800thousand2009 ’15 ’19*NorthAmerica RestofworldOne-yearshareandindex
performance25–100–75–50–250%2019 2020TupperwareBrandsS&P500New, premium products will excite the company’s sales force, the CEO says. Storage products on display at corporate headquarters in Florida.JOHN GREIM/LIGHTROCKET/GETTY IMAGESyour price,’” said Keith Hay-
ward, Monadnock’s managing
director. “We don’t work like
that.”
Ray Whitby, a Monadnock
sales manager, said some buy-
ers are paying for air ship-
ment because the standard
seaborne container shipments
would take too long and are
running behind schedule.
“The economics are out the
window,” Mr. Whitby said.
One executive at another
company said he had stocked
up on polypropylene resin to
ensure continued production
after running short during the
2009 influenza pandemic,
which the CDC estimates left
60.8 million people ill in the
U.S. About 12,500 died.line for the mask-filter mate-
rial makes about 1.5 tons a
day. The company recently
started a test run of a second
machine and will add a third
in the coming weeks that will
triple output to around 30
tons a week.
The company has expanded
overtime for its permanent
staff of under 100 employees.
It has hired about eight tem-
porary workers and is looking
for more, which has been dif-
ficult given the tight labor
market. Monadnock has in-
creased prices slightly for ex-
isting customers to account
for the extra overtime and is
charging more to new cus-
tomers.
“People are saying, ‘Namepolypropylene leaves fewer for
health workers who need to
wear them while treating pa-
tients infected with the virus.
Some big manufacturers in-
cluding 3M Co. make many of
the components for N95
masks themselves, but others
rely on specialized suppliers.
Monadnock Non-Wovens
LLC has been getting more
than 100 calls and emails a
day asking for huge quantities
of nonwoven polypropylene.
Some callers have offered lux-
ury vacations to Monadnock
employees to fulfill orders.
Some customers are asking
the Mount Pocono, Pa., com-
pany for up to 200 tons of the
material. The single machine
on Monadnock’s production$2 billion of annual revenue
outside North America.
The Orlando, Fla., company
had roughly 546,000 active
salespeople around the globe
as of September. But its active
sales force in the U.S. and
Canada fell to about 184,000—
less than half the number it
had a decade earlier. New,
premium products will help
excite the company’s sales
force, Mr. O’Leary said.
Last month, Tupperware
said it had to delay filing its
annual report as it investi-
gated accounting practices in a
beauty business in Mexico. It
expects its overall annual sales
for 2019 to fall by at least 12%,
and for this year to fall by at
least 10%.
The company also has en-
dured executive turnover. Rick
Goings stepped down as chief
executive in 2018 after nearly
21 years as its top leader; Ms.
Stitzel, who replaced him,need,” he said.
Tupperware products be-
came available in 1946 when
chemist Earl Tupper first of-
fered a plastic container with
an airtight lid. But sales didn’t
take off until the 1950s, afterhe hired Brownie Wise, a sec-
retary, to build a network of
mostly suburban women to
host patio parties. Mr. Tupper
sold the business in 1958. It
had several corporate owners
before going public in 1996.
Tupperware expanded
overseas and now gets about
three-quarters of its roughlylow color wheel, like in the
70s, because that’s what their
mom had and their grandma
had,” said Brittany White, a
33-year-old event manager in
Indianapolis who stopped sell-
ing Tupperware in 2018 after
about six months.
Mariam Lively, who lives
near San Antonio, has sold
Tupperware items for around
15 years but has scaled back
her activity. She hasn’t hosted
a party in five years.
“The home parties aren’t as
popular,” she said. “I think a
lot of it is people don’t have
time to gather.”
Christopher O’Leary, Tup-
perware’s interim chief execu-
tive, said the company has a
powerful brand in food storage
and preparation, a global pres-
ence and the ability to create
innovative new products.
“Tupperware Brands is well-
positioned to capitalize on
what consumers want andLife has gone from the party
at Tupperware Brands Corp.
Revenue and profits have
been sagging for years, leaving
investors sour on the future of
the company that has been
selling food containers for 74
years.
On Feb. 24, Tupperware
said it would delay filing its
annual report to conduct a
probe into accounting issues.
Shares fell by nearly half the
next day and closed Friday at
$2.60, a fraction of the $96
they traded at more than six
years ago.
Overseas, Tupperware’s bets
on markets like China and Bra-
zil have left it exposed to
choppy economic growth. In
the U.S., it hasn’t been able to
arrest a yearslong decline in
the size of its sales force. The
company’s efforts to draw in
customers and sellers with
new kitchen items, e-com-
merce investments and other
initiatives haven’t taken root.
“People just don’t have con-
nection with the brand any-
more,” Patricia Stitzel, Tupper-
ware’s former chief executive,
told analysts in October, ex-
plaining why the company was
sponsoring a pop-up store in
New York City for the holidays.
She stepped down from her
post in November.
Tupperware drummed up
sales over the decades through
an army of independent deal-
ers who plied their sales
pitches for plastic food-storage
kits and other kitchen products
at home parties. Now, like
Avon and other direct-selling
brands, Tupperware faces
questions about whether it can
remain relevant as consumers
migrate to shopping online and
socializing has moved from liv-
ing rooms to apps like Insta-
gram.
“Everyone still thinks of the
burnt-orange or mustard-yel-
BYMICAHMAIDENBERG
$2.60
PriceofashareonFriday,
downfrom$96sixyearsagoNonwoven polypropylene
has never been so popular.
The industrial fabric is a
critical component of the so-
phisticated face masks that
protect medical workers from
the new coronavirus. As the
virus spreads around the
world, those face masks are in
short supply. Now nonwoven
polypropylene is, too.
Potential customers looking
for the oil-derived textile have
offered manufacturers huge
markups and even vacations
to fill their orders.
Companies are adding ca-
pacity, increasing production
and air-shipping orders to
customers to keep up.
“This has been unprece-
dented demand,” said Thomas
Salmon, chief executive of
Berry Global Group Inc. The
Evansville, Ind., manufacturer
recently shifted most of a pro-
duction line that had been
making parts for air filters to
make more nonwoven poly-
propylene fabrics for masks
instead.
The U.S. Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention
doesn’t recommend that peo-
ple wear face masks unless
they are sick and need to be in
public.
Officials say buying up the
sophisticated N95 masks—so
called because they filter out
95% of tiny particles—that
typically contain nonwoven
BYAUSTENHUFFORD
ANDMELANIEEVANS
Face-Mask Fabric Is in Short Supply
The Monadnock Non-Wovens LLC factory in Pennsylvania. It has been getting over 100 requests a day.HANNAH YOON FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNALBUSINESS NEWS
NY