End of Tupperware jars imminent, 260 employees in Flanders holding their breath (Aalst)

At the moment, the unions are not planning any actions at the factory in Wijngaardveld in Aalst. They are waiting for news from their department, but they feel the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. In November 2022, the imminent bankruptcy was still ongoing. But they are now in a worse position than they were then.

“Of course we are very concerned,” says Bart Vanbock, general secretary of Central ABVV, in response to the stock market fiasco. But with the standard social dialogue, the employer at the factory in Aalst has not yet sent us a single alarm signal. We will first contact the local administration for specific answers, and we’d rather not expect that.”

The US headquarters of troubled Tupperware Brands has hired a financial advisor to dispel investor doubts about the company’s viability. A kind of desperation, experts say, that has just sparked a backlash from stock market traders. The stock fell on Wall Street on Monday. Tupperware lost nearly 50 percent of its market value in one day.

Virtual meetings

However, the company has done well during the Corona pandemic because more people are eating at home and sales of kitchen supplies have peaked. It has replaced Tupperware parties — the legendary door-to-door sale — with virtual gatherings among friends.

But then sales began to slip again, and Tupperware, a victim of its old image, ran into trouble with banks in November, in part because of hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. Now the end seems nearer.

doomed to go under

In Aalst, where Tupperware has been helping people from the region work since 1961, they wait in suspense. The 260 people who are still working there currently do not know where their future lies. The purely Belgian part of this story is by no means negative. But Tupperware naturally paints the global picture and this is of course less positive.

Foreign experts say that without additional funds, the company is doomed to collapse and layoffs are inevitable. The US administration is now investigating whether real estate sales, sale-and-leaseback transactions, and the sale of sites to lease them afterwards, can save the Tupperware tractor and employees from destruction.