It gave women in the 1960s a social life and kept food fresh when fridges were a huge expense, but it could be all over for Tupperware.

The 77-year-old US company has rising debts and falling sales, and could go bust without investment, as reported by the BBC.

Attempts to freshen up its once-revolutionary products in recent years and reposition itself to a younger audience, has failed to stop a big fall in sales.

Tupperware parties made the brand a household name in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, with its airtight and watertight containers taking the market by storm.

But Tupperware's core business model of using self-employed salespeople, nearly always women, selling from their own homes and through parties went out of fashion and stopped altogether in the UK in 2003.

Tupperware enjoyed a brief renaissance during the pandemic, as more people took up cooking and baking at home, but it proved to be short-lived and sales have continued to slip.

Now without new funding, the brand name which has become a noun for all plastic food containers, could soon vanish completely, as the market is flooded by much cheaper alternatives.

The company was founded in 1946 by a man, Earl Tupper, but its public face was a woman - Brownie Wise. Wise organised events to sell the containers, meeting the housewives and mothers the company wanted to reach, at get-togethers which were as much about socialising as they were about sales. From there, the Tupperware party was born.

But shares in the business fell sharply this week and it looks like Tupperware's party could soon be over forever.