The Tupperware brand is practically synonymous with the idea of direct selling. That's just fine with CEO Rick Goings, who says that's what the firm does best. In fact, he even sees opportunities in an economic slowdown. As consumers eat out less, and employees find themselves downsized, Tupperware benefits from both trends—with products that help store leftovers, and that can be sold from home. Indeed, the number of Tupperware's new recruits skyrocketed 10% in the third quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, revenue for the Orlando, Fla.-based company increased 12.8% to $513.1 million, from $454.7 million in the same quarter of 2007. For Tupperware, the party is just beginning.

Q: Do you think with consumers cooking more at home, Tupperware will boost its bottom line?

A: If you ask me, I would rather have a great economy. But when we get this kind of pullback and caution from consumers, you start to see them stay at home and we're the beneficiaries of that. In boxing, they always talk about punching and counter-punching. Business is a fight. There's limited disposable income out there, and when these kind of forces hit, we have to sit there as a company and think, how do we give the women [who work for us] counter-punches? So we try to show them more products for people who are cooking at home, and more products, particularly in Europe, for people who can bring their food to the office.

Q: With 56% of your sales coming from emerging markets in the last quarter, are you concerned about a potential global slowdown?

A: The reason why we're in very good shape there is we're in early days in emerging markets. There's a lot of runway left. In China, Russia and Indonesia, which is 47% of the world's population, we've got probably somewhere between 15% to 20% penetration levels of what we think is our ultimate number.

Q: Are you seeing sales numbers rise in line with the number of new sales recruits?

A: No, we're in a transitional period. The average customer order is smaller. Drawing on history, if we can get a 10% sales force rise, you get a 3% to 5% bump in sales, with the other 5% representing the compression in consumer spending. A lot of retailers out there can't open more doors in times like this because they've got the fixed expense of the stores. We can go out there because there's not an incremental cost. I was talking with the president of our Hungarian business who was saying that the women in eastern Hungary don't read the Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal. She's doing a couple of parties a week. And if there is a slowdown, the local distributor will try to motivate her to hold three parties a week.

Q: Any plans to grow the beauty product side of the business beyond the brands you have right now?

A:We've got enough for a global beachhead, and organic growth will be significant from them. When someone asks why we do beauty and Tupperware, I say we're a lot like News Corp. For years they were just tabloids and then they got into more sophisticated daily newspapers, along with Fox, MySpace, and, for years now, Sky in Europe. That's our model. We know direct selling.