Thinking outside the box

Rise & fall of the of our kitchen icon

- SIOBHAN MCNALLY

The firm that inspired Joan Rivers to joke "I've had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware" has gone into meltdown.

Shares in the food storage giant tumbled almost 50% this week, threatening the firm that has kept us busy for almost 80 years trying to find the right lid for the right box.

Tupperware was named one of 10 greatest icons of our time in the Guinness Book of the 20th Century.

Even the late Queen Elizabeth was a fan, spooning her cornflakes from a plastic container rather than straight from a common cardboard box.

The fate of the retro brand invented by Earl Silas Tupper in 1945 may have been sealed when plastic pollution became the number one threat to the world's ecosystem.

But long before we knew about the harm plastics pose to our planet, the cheap mass-produced material was revolutionary.