A&P will be no more

[Phil Thien]

Looks like A&P will be selling-off about half their stores and shuttering the others, and will cease operations.

When I was a kid (40+ years ago), we'd sometimes go to the A&P, they had a few things my mom liked.

It wasn't a very large store, grocery stores back then were smaller affairs.

Fewer items came individually wrapped (in boxes) back in the "olden days."

Over the years, grocery stores (including A&P) have gotten much larger. Now they are building Meijer grocery stores here, and they're enormous.

I read Aldi is probably doing better (financially) than most of the others, which is pretty funny seeing as their stores are much smaller and selection much more limited.

They haven't had any A&P stores around here for a while. Still I have fond memories of that place because I used to enjoy huffing the coffee aroma.

[Mike Henderson]

A&P has been dying for a long time now. They were THE major supermarket early in their life but they just didn't adapt to the changes in the market. They've gone through quite a number of reorganizations. I was surprised when I heard about their shutdown - I thought they had gone out of business some years ago.

Mike

[Paul Hinds]

Sigh. The passing of another American Icon. I wonder if anyone even remembers the full name that the letters stood for. It didn't seem grandiose in the company's early days.

[Jerome Stanek]

Sigh. The passing of another American Icon. I wonder if anyone even remembers the full name that the letters stood for. It didn't seem grandiose in the company's early days.


Do you mean Atlantic and Pacific food store and their own products were Ann Page

[Paul McGaha]

Sad to hear. That was an old school grocery store. Eight O'Clock coffee. I always liked the stores.

We use Wegmans weekly and Costco maybe bi-weekly.

PHM

[Chris Padilla]

Are Piggly Wigglys still around?

[Matt Meiser]

A&P has been gone from around here for a long time, maybe the late 70's or early 80's. Still see some of the stores standing. Then they came back by buying local chain Farmer Jack, only to eventually shut them all down after a big expansion. There's a good number of those still empty. The former Farmer Jack near our house sat empty for years after being open only a couple years before the hospital bought it and converted it to warehouse, PT, and dialysis space. Another new one in Toledo got torn down and replaced by a Kroger Marketplace store.

[Jay Aubuchon]

Yes, Piggly Wiggly is still around. I was in one in Tennessee a few weeks ago.

And A & P was "The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company."

[Kent A Bathurst]

Sigh. The passing of another American Icon.

Yep. Absolutely.

Either that or the death of another hidebound old-line corporation that could not figure out how to avoid being eaten by the efficient capitalist competition.

People wail and wring their hands at the destruction of the old central town, and the "when I was a kid" stores, caused by the _________ superstore, while all the time shopping at that superstore and ordering online from A'zon.

They got plain-old smoked by the modern, more nimble, competition. Those numbers you read about growth in national productivity? They climb because people figure out how to increase output without a corresponding increase in input, and the GDP per capita raises. The inefficient are left in the dust by the unmerciful hand of economics...........

And - yep - me too. When I was in 3d and 4th grade, in a small town in Virginia, me, my brother, and a friend would scramble around to find pennies and nickles until we got to 39 cents, and walk 3 blocks to the downtown A&P for a HUGE delicious watermelon, and carry it home on a hot summer's day and devour it, laughing all the time. Halcyon days. And I loved the A&P and I'll miss them, but they can't take that memory, and they failed, and that's on them.

[John Coloccia]

C'est la vie. You play with the bull, you get the horns. They've squeezed plenty of mom and pop markets out of business. I wonder who will squeeze the current survivors out? Maybe we'll all just order our groceries online from Amazon and Walmart next year.

[Peter Kelly]

Didn't realize A&P was a national chain., thought it was just here in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states.

Interesting article on how and why Aldi (and TJ's) are so effective: http://frugalbites.com/why-is-aldi-so-much-cheaper-than-other-supermarkets/

Probably the future of grocery retailing though the shopping cart thing really bugs me.

[Kent A Bathurst]

LOML, every Saturday at 7 am in season, goes to a local farmer's market. AFAIK all "organic" but includes dead critter products as well as veggies. Excellent stuff, very fresh, all locally grown. Gets most of her needs for the upcoming week. But, also goes to the neighborhood Publix - they seem to be a very well-run outfit.

So -- It won't all necessarily come from wherever - - that will be an option. I am pretty confident the local farmer's market stuff carries a premium which "we" are willing to pay because it's really good......

[Mike Henderson]

Didn't realize A&P was a national chain., thought it was just here in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states.

Interesting article on how and why Aldi (and TJ's) are so effective: http://frugalbites.com/why-is-aldi-so-much-cheaper-than-other-supermarkets/

Probably the future of grocery retailing though the shopping cart thing really bugs me.
What bugs me is the people who leave a shopping cart in a parking space so that you have to get out of your car and move the cart before you can park. I always take one or two cart from the lot back to the store when I go in. If everyone did that, the lot would be kept clear of carts. Or people could return their carts.

The 25 cents for a cart would appeal to me, except if I didn't have a quarter in my pocket.

Mike

[Mike Null]

Back in the 50's A&P had over 5000 stores coast to coast. They were easily the largest grocery chain in the country. Their strongest markets were the east and west coasts and not so strong in the south and midwest. Regional chains modernized and upgraded their stores much earlier than A&P and ate into their market share. Divisions in the weaker markets could no longer meet their bloated distribution costs and older, smaller stores were no longer profitable.

They were also late to embrace technology. I was with Kroger back in the 50's and we were using IBM inventory control at store level then. A&P was using pencils.

The 8 O'clock coffee brand is sold in many stores today, including independents here in St. Louis.

[Curt Harms]

There are chains that I didn't know were owned by A&P - Superfresh and Pathmark in the mid-Atlantic area. Some of those are closing but I don't think all, at least not yet.

[John Coloccia]

There are chains that I didn't know were owned by A&P - Superfresh and Pathmark in the mid-Atlantic area. Some of those are closing but I don't think all, at least not yet.

Pathmark, A&P and Waldbaums were all big in the New York area where I grew up, and I believe they all ended up being owned by A&P. I think a lot of the stores aren't actually closing, but are being bought out. I think Stop&Shop bought some....someone else bought some. The ones that will close are the ones that are obviously already in a saturated market. That seems more and more common, though.

[Rod Sheridan]

Didn't realize A&P was a national chain., thought it was just here in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states.

Interesting article on how and why Aldi (and TJ's) are so effective: http://frugalbites.com/why-is-aldi-so-much-cheaper-than-other-supermarkets/

Probably the future of grocery retailing though the shopping cart thing really bugs me.

Actually it was international, we had them as well............Regards, Rod.

[Barry McFadden]

A&P has been gone for years up here....now they are Metro.....

[Jim Koepke]

Yep. Absolutely.

Either that or the death of another hidebound old-line corporation that could not figure out how to avoid being eaten by the efficient capitalist competition.


Many years ago my employer was one of those old stodgy companies. Whenever someone would suggest doing something a different way the standard reply was, "we have always done it this way and it still works." They downsized and ended up being devoured by a company with a more modern approach to the market. At one time it had the biggest steel casting facility west of the Mississippi River. My recollection is when they closed there were about 2,000 people put out of work.

There were a lot of little changes that could have been made along the way to keep them in business, but that wasn't they way they did things.

jtk

[Brian Elfert]

Walmart is now the single largest seller of groceries in the USA. Walmart sells 25% of all groceries in the USA. Walmart is even building Neighborhood Markets that only sell groceries. That market share has to come from somewhere unfortunately. Walmart is not the only discounter taking market share from traditional grocery stores. Aldi is growing fast. The Minneapolis area lost an entire chain of grocery stores in 2014. Another chain bought some of the locations while a number of the locations were closed.

Change happens constantly in the business world. Some changes you can adapt to and sometimes you go out of business. If you print stuff there really is no other use for printing presses. Plenty of businesses have gone under because of the Internet, but plenty of new companies are thriving because of the Internet.