Dive Brief:
- Tupperware is shutting down its only U.S. facility, laying off 148 employees in Hemingway, South Carolina, according to a June 11 Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filing.
- The job cuts are scheduled to take place from Sept. 28 through Jan. 14, 2025.
- The food storage company sold its Hemingway facility last October and will transition manufacturing operations by year’s end to its Lerma, Mexico, plant, which already manufactures most of the products for its U.S. and Canada markets, a company spokesperson told Manufacturing Dive.
Dive Insight:
Tupperware will offer eligible employees early retirement and severance packages and provide outplacement services.
The nearly 80-year-old company cited the closure as part of a multi-year strategy to simplify its supply chain and operations and create efficiencies, according to the spokesperson.
Tupperware is also navigating major concerns about its overall financial state, saying in a March 29 quarterly securities filing that there is “substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern for at least one year.”
The closure of the South Carolina facility follows a rocky past two years for the company. With a slew of operational and financial woes, Tupperware has been trying to restructure its debt and make changes to its executive board, electing former Spanx CEO Laurie Ann Goldman as Tupperware's new CEO in October 2023.
In April, Tupperware disclosed that it hadn’t filed its mandatory annual 10-K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, prompting the New York Stock Exchange to give the company a warning it’s at risk to be delisted if one isn’t turned in the next six months. Tupperware has yet to file the annual report.
The company also filed its Q1 2024 report late, saying the delays in filing were due to “material weaknesses in the Company's internal control over financial reporting.”
Despite its financial struggles, Tupperware is still planning to invest in a new third-party logistics facility in the Midwest, according to the company spokesperson. The new facility will aim to offer additional capabilities to serve its customers, reduce shipping times and implement new warehouse technologies to better serve direct sales, retail and e-commerce customers.
The transition of the Hemingway facility’s production and establishment of the new distribution center will happen in phases throughout the remainder of the year, the spokesperson stated.
Tupperware has other manufacturing locations in Belgium, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Portugal, China, India and South Africa, according to the spokesperson.
