Atlantic Food Mart history

1861: First store opens in New York City.

In 1869 the company became the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, to commemorate the joining of the first transcontinental railroad and to separate its retail stores from its mail-order operations.

The company established a foothold in the Midwest in the aftermath of the Chicago Fire of 1871, when A&P sent staff and food to help the devastated city, and stayed to open stores in the Midwest.

By 1876 the company had become the first significant grocery chain, having reached the 100-store mark.

In 1878, after Gilman's retirement, Hartford gained full control of the business.

In 1882 Eight O'Clock Breakfast Coffee was introduced; the Eight O'Clock blend remained a hallmark house brand into the early 21st century.

A&P's "club plan," which encouraged the formation of clubs to make bulk mail-order sales for an additional one-third discount, was so successful that by 1886 hundreds of such clubs had been formed.

John was described as an "old-school actor-manager." He was well-suited for his responsibility for promotions and premiums and generally ensured a "personal touch" in each of A&P's stores, which by 1900 numbered nearly 200 and generated $5.6 million in annual sales.

In 1912, the first A&P Economy Store opened.

When George Hartford, Sr. died in 1917, George Jr. became chairman of A&P, while John became president.

By 1925, A&P had 14,000 economy stores, with sales of $440 million, marking one of the greatest retail expansions ever.

Sales reached the $1 billion mark in 1929, and the following year the chain's store count peaked at 15,709 outlets.

The public's reception of these publications prompted the company to begin publishing Woman's Day magazine in 1937, at two cents per issue.

By 1949, the store count was down to just over 4500, while sales had skyrocketed.

To celebrate the company’s 100th anniversary in 1959, the red brick cupola-ed “Centennial” prototype was unveiled.

Atlantic Food Distributors, originally known as Atlantic Fish, was founded in 1960, when before dawn each day owner Steve Manolakis traveled from Canton to Cleveland to purchase fresh fish for his retail store.

In 1969, at the death of its eccentric and domineering president, Ralph Burger, A&P was the largest food chain in the United States, with more than twice the sales of its nearest competitor, Safeway.

The first experimental location opened in 1971 in Pennsauken NJ and performed reasonably well.

In 1973, as A&P reported $51 million in losses and Safeway took its place as the largest food retailer in the country, Jonathan L. Scott was hired from Albertson's, marking the first time in history that A&P had looked outside its ranks for management.

The Family Mart, launched in Greenville SC in 1977, was more successful.

Beginning in 1979, after stock prices fell dramatically, the German supermarket giant Tengelmann bought a controlling percentage of the outstanding shares.

The Tengelmann Group appointed James Wood, the former CEO of the Grand Union Company, as chairman and CEO of A&P, in 1980.

Wood's reputation as a turnaround manager underwent a trial by fire, but his radical restructuring of the company was later lauded by analysts as "an outstanding success." By 1982, close to 40 percent of the company's stores had been shut down.

A particularly interesting format was the A&P Futurestore, the first of which were opened in the New Orleans area in 1984.

Improved sales allowed the company to begin to undertake new-store construction by 1985: the "new" A&P aimed for an upscale, service-oriented image and catered to one-stop shoppers.

1986: Company gains leading position in New York metropolitan area through the acquisitions of the Waldbaum and Shopwell/Food Emporium chains.

In 1988, Master Choice, a private-brand label of specialty chocolates, pastas, sauces, and herbal teas was introduced in order to compete with what industry experts considered the real competition: restaurants and fast-food chains.

In 1989 A&P made a bid for Gateway Corporation, the third largest grocery chain in Britain.

A&P also had trouble with another international venture, its $250 million acquisition of 70 Miracle Food Mart stores in Ontario in 1990.

Waldbaum's in New York was cited in 1991 as the worst of all area grocery chains for numerous problems with rodents and cockroaches.

Gateway would have offered A&P a whole new arena for growth, one that was of considerable interest to Erivan Haub, Tengelmann's owner, who wished to shore up his European retailing empire in preparation for the unification of the common market in 1992.

A&P also remodeled more than 100 stores in 1993 and built 20 new ones.

The company gained a new president in 1994, Christian Haub, the 29-year-old son of Erivan Haub, the principal owner of A&P's majority owner Tengelmann Group.

The company had to write off charges related to an employee buy out program there in 1995, but the next year, A&P gained a $6.5 million tax-refund in Canada.

According to Haub, A&P planned to open 50 stores a year after 1996.

That, coupled with excellent results from the company's Michigan stores, helped A&P post a 28 percent increase in profits for the fiscal year ending in February 1997.

In December 1998 A&P announced that it would shut 127 smaller, underperforming stores.

Restructuring charges of about $120 million led A&P to post a net loss of $67.2 million for the fiscal year ending in February 1999.

The company's stock began declining, reaching an all-time low in October 2002, the same month that Culligan tendered her resignation.

A&P sold its coffee business (Eight O’Clock brand) in 2003.

The profitable Canadian division was sold in 2005.

As of 2006, The Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company’s 15,000 stores had dwindled to just over 400, operating under the A&P, A&P Super Foodmart, Waldbaum’s, Food Emporium, Super Fresh, Farmer Jack, Sav-A-Center and Food Basics names.

In 2007, A&P purchased rival Pathmark to expand its positioning in the region.

The Canadian stores, reputedly some of the most profitable, were sold to Metro in 2009.

A 2010 bankruptcy was the beginning of the end, and was followed by more closures, although the company did emerge from bankruptcy as a privately-held concern.