THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505110043
SECTION: FLAVOR PAGE: F1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DONNA REISS, SPECIAL TO SUNDAY FLAVOR
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
I HAD BEEN lured by a tourist brochure that listed the Tupperware Museum along with the more familiar Epcot Center, Magic Kingdom, Sea World, Universal Studios, MGM and Gatorland.
I'd seen the others on previous visits to my native Florida, so I asked my friend to drop me off at Tupperware World Headquarters in Orlando.
On a break in a busy conference schedule, I alone thought the Tupperware Museum sounded more interesting than a morning with Mickey and Minnie.
So at 9 a.m., I stood by myself at the curve of the horseshoe driveway in front of the sleek sprawling one-story building.
Receptionist Allison Addington welcomed me.
I'm here to see the Tupperware Museum,'' I said.
``It's gone,'' she smiled.
I showed her my visitors' guide to Orlando attractions, including the Tupperware Museum of Historical Containers.
``They print hundreds of thousands of those and keep using them until they're gone,'' Addington explained.
From 1953 until 1992, Tupperware had exhibited containers dating to 4000 B.C., she said. As many as 80,000 people a year visited the display.
But the museum's collection is in storage at the Orlando Museum of Art. In its place is a sparkling display of current Tupperware products.
There were no rickety stone bowls or wavy glass bottles from another era. Instead, I saw a rainbow of contemporary plastic products designed to retain food's freshness, all housed in glass cases.
Although I missed the 4,000-year-old Egyptian forerunner of the bowl that can be burped, I saw contemporary containers designed for global kitchens.
For the Mexican market, containers come in carnival colors like raspberry, or earth tones. There's even Tupperware for tortilla storage.
Venezuelans can choose black moire-patterned plastic boxes with rounded edges. For the Belgian kitchen, a shaker allows the cook to control the amount of confectioners' sugar sprinkled atop tarts.
Earl Tupper started it all in 1938, when he founded Tupper Plastics Co. He had worked in a DuPont chemical plant, where he learned about plastics.
Direct sales brought Tupperware to the kitchens of the '50s; many women of that decade were given their first career opportunities through the marketing tool of the Tupperware home party.
Today's sellers, are ``consultants''; marketing meetings come to people's offices as well as their houses.
Tupperware has competitors for the container market; supermarkets and discount stores sell serviceable storage systems.
Tupperware makes plastics that go from fridge to microwave to freezer, and the company even makes toys and metal cookware.
Its award-winning double colander, introduced in 1994, was designed by Morison Cousins and is displayed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Musee Des Arts Decoratifs in Montreal.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
Orlando's Tupperware Museum is gone, but you can still see a display
of the ubiquitous vessels.
by CNB