Reading a company history of this company.
The Wiki article:
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company - Wikipedia
"
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that ceased supermarket operations in November 2015, after 156 years in business.[1] From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States (and until 1965, the largest U.S. retailer of any kind).[2] A&P was considered an American icon that, according to The Wall Street Journal, "was as well known as McDonald's or Google is today", and was "the Walmart before Walmart".[3][4] At its peak in the 1940s, A&P captured 10% of total US grocery spend.[5] Known for innovation, A&P and the supermarkets that followed its lead significantly improved nutritional habits by making available a vast assortment of food products at much lower costs.[6] Until 1982, A&P also was a large food manufacturer.[7] In his 1952 book, American Capitalism, John Kenneth Galbraith cited A&P's manufacturing strategy as a classic example of countervailing power that was a welcome alternative to state price controls.[8]
Founded in 1859 by George Gilman as "Gilman & Company", within a few years the firm opened a small chain of retail tea and coffee stores in New York City, and operated a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878, when Gilman passed management to George Huntington Hartford, who turned A&P into the country's first grocery chain. In 1900, it operated almost 200 stores. After Hartford acquired ownership, A&P grew dramatically by introducing the economy store concept in 1912, growing to 1,600 stores in 1915. After World War I, it added stores that offered meat and produce, while expanding manufacturing.
In 1930, A&P, now the world's largest retailer, reached $2.9 billion in sales with 16,000 stores. In 1936, it adopted the self-serve supermarket concept and opened 4,000 larger stores (while phasing out many of its smaller units) by 1950.[9]
A&P's decline began in the early 1950s, when it failed to keep pace with competitors that opened larger supermarkets with more modern features demanded by customers. By the 1970s, A&P stores were outdated, and its efforts to combat high operating costs resulted in poor customer service"
It was also the target of the animosity toward chain stores, which was not only wrong headed but incorrect as well, since they never had more than 15% of the market, despite being a huge company bigger than Sears. Huey Long and Wright Patman unfairly targeted it during the Depression because its prices were too low ... many New Dealers were clueless about how 'the other half lives', and had the incorrect notion that higher farm prices would help the American farmer, which is true, but it actually would do nothing to help the majority of farmers, who were not land owners but sharecroppers, which why we see these bizarre court cases like the following:
United States v. New York Great A. & P. Tea Co., 67 F. Supp. 626 (E.D. Ill. 1946)
I'll also point out that the vast majority of these cases and restrictions on business came from business people themselves whining about other businesspeople, not Roosevelt or some Commie elite sent over by Stalin or something, as the conspiratards like to pretend.
The Wiki article:
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company - Wikipedia
"
The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that ceased supermarket operations in November 2015, after 156 years in business.[1] From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States (and until 1965, the largest U.S. retailer of any kind).[2] A&P was considered an American icon that, according to The Wall Street Journal, "was as well known as McDonald's or Google is today", and was "the Walmart before Walmart".[3][4] At its peak in the 1940s, A&P captured 10% of total US grocery spend.[5] Known for innovation, A&P and the supermarkets that followed its lead significantly improved nutritional habits by making available a vast assortment of food products at much lower costs.[6] Until 1982, A&P also was a large food manufacturer.[7] In his 1952 book, American Capitalism, John Kenneth Galbraith cited A&P's manufacturing strategy as a classic example of countervailing power that was a welcome alternative to state price controls.[8]
Founded in 1859 by George Gilman as "Gilman & Company", within a few years the firm opened a small chain of retail tea and coffee stores in New York City, and operated a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878, when Gilman passed management to George Huntington Hartford, who turned A&P into the country's first grocery chain. In 1900, it operated almost 200 stores. After Hartford acquired ownership, A&P grew dramatically by introducing the economy store concept in 1912, growing to 1,600 stores in 1915. After World War I, it added stores that offered meat and produce, while expanding manufacturing.
In 1930, A&P, now the world's largest retailer, reached $2.9 billion in sales with 16,000 stores. In 1936, it adopted the self-serve supermarket concept and opened 4,000 larger stores (while phasing out many of its smaller units) by 1950.[9]
A&P's decline began in the early 1950s, when it failed to keep pace with competitors that opened larger supermarkets with more modern features demanded by customers. By the 1970s, A&P stores were outdated, and its efforts to combat high operating costs resulted in poor customer service"
It was also the target of the animosity toward chain stores, which was not only wrong headed but incorrect as well, since they never had more than 15% of the market, despite being a huge company bigger than Sears. Huey Long and Wright Patman unfairly targeted it during the Depression because its prices were too low ... many New Dealers were clueless about how 'the other half lives', and had the incorrect notion that higher farm prices would help the American farmer, which is true, but it actually would do nothing to help the majority of farmers, who were not land owners but sharecroppers, which why we see these bizarre court cases like the following:
United States v. New York Great A. & P. Tea Co., 67 F. Supp. 626 (E.D. Ill. 1946)
I'll also point out that the vast majority of these cases and restrictions on business came from business people themselves whining about other businesspeople, not Roosevelt or some Commie elite sent over by Stalin or something, as the conspiratards like to pretend.
