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- Last Thursday in New York, the anti-trust lawyers from Washington filed a suit to put A&P out of business.
They asked the court to order us to get rid of most of our stores and also the manufacturing facilities
which supply you with coffee, Ann Page products, Jane Parker baked goo^ and other quality
items we produce.
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This would mean higher food (trices for you. It would mean less food on every dinner table and fewer
dollars in every pay envelope.
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It would mean the end of A&P as you know it;
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This poses a basic question for the Ameriom people: Do they want to continue to enjoy lower prices and
better living? Or do they want to breads up A&P and pay higher prices, and have lower living standards?
What do you want? '
Why Destroy A&P?
[This suit was brought under the anti-trust laws. These eire good laws. They wer6
passed about fifty years ago to prevent any company, or any group of companies,
from getting a monopoly in a field and then raising prices to the public. (
A&P has never done any of these things. ^ '
Nobody has ever shown that we have anything even approaching a monopoly
of the food business anywhere. As every housewife knows, the retail grocery
busine^ss is the mosrcompetitive in the country and we do only a spiall part of it.
Nobody has ever said we charged too high prices — just the opposite. This
whole attack rises out of the fact that we sell good food too cheap. We would
not have had any of this trouble if, ihstead of lowering prices, we had raised
them and pocketed the difference. '
Nobody has ever said that our profit rate was too high. During the past live
years our net profit, after taxes, has averaged about l^ac on every dollar of
sales, which is less than almost any other business you. can think of.
The American people have shown that they like our low-price policy by coming
to our stores tq do their shopping. If A&P is big, it is because the American
people, by their, patronage, have made it big. ' •
Obviously, it is the theory of the anti-trust lawyers that t^e people have no right
ito patronize a company, if their patronage will make that company grow; and
that any big business must be destroyed simply because it is big, and even if the
public gets hurt in the process.
Do You Want Higher Prices? **
[There is much more involved in this case than the future of A&P. The entire!
American 83r3tem of efficient, low-cost, low-profit distribution which we pioneered,
>yill face destruction and the public will suffer. ' |
A&P was the first chain store in this country. Fenr piore dian ninety years we have
tried to build a sound business on the simple formula die founder gave us:. |
^**Give die people the most good food you can for their money.*’ Yew after year '
Uve have tried to do a better job, make!* our business more efficient, and pass j
savinl^ on to the consumer in the form of lower prices. |
Over efforts along thsM lines have led other grocers to keep thdr coets and
profits down.
In the pM ^days before A&P, food that cost the grocer 50^ often sold as high
as $1.00 at retetil. ' « |
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[Today, food .that costs the grocer 50^ general^ sells to the puUic at less than 60^. |
The methods we pioneered have been adopted not only by other grocers, but
by merchants in other lines. TlMre are today literally hundreds of plfain stores, >
yoluntary groups and individ^ merchants operating with th^ same methods^
and in the seune pattern here under attack. ■ ■ ■ ' ' * i,
If the anti-trust lawyers succeed in destro3ring A&P, the way will clear for
the destruction of every other efficient large-scale distributor. .
THE GREAT ATLANTIC &
Who Will Be Hurt?
[There has never been any question in our mind that it is good business and
good citizenship to sell good fopd as cheaply as possible. As Fortune Magazine
said about A&P some time ago, “It is firmly attached to the one great principle —
the selling of more for less — that has made the desert bloom and the nation
Wax great.”
We sincerely believe that we have helped t^e Arherican people eat better and
live better.
We believe that the hundreds of thousands of farmers and manufacturers who
have voluntarily sought our business have profited by our fast, low-cost distribu
tion of their products.
We know that our 110,000 loyal employees enjoy today, as they always have,
the highest wages, shortest hours and best wolrking conditions generally prevail
ing in the retail food industry; and that these men and women have found in
A&P good opportunities for security and progress.
We know that thousands of businessmen — the landlords who rent os our
stores, the haulers who operate our trucks, the people who supply us with goods
and services — have a big stake in our operations.
Qbviously, all these people will suffer if this company is put out of busings.
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What Shall We Do?
.We admit that the interests of the owners of A&P are of little importance.
Frankly, they could make an enormous amount of money by breaking up A&P^ ^
as the anti-truet lawyers wish, and selling off the parts. . 't
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But is this what the American people want> Do they agree with the and-trudf
'lawyers that our food prices are too low, and that we should be put out of ^
picture sp^ther grocers can charge more?
Frankly, if ffiit Wbre the case, we would not want to continue in business.
But we seriously doubt that this is the case. Twelve years ago, an effort waa *
made to tax this company and other chain stores out ot business. Thf ^
i^ed to our support. They said they likQi|Lour quality foods and our lo^ 1
As a result of their opposition, die tax wn^ defeated. ^
Now we are faced with this new attack through the courts. We are faced with' *
the heavy toste and all the trouUe that lawsuits involve.
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But wa briieve this attack is a threat to milBons of consiimsrs who rely on na
for quality foods at low prices; to farmers who rriy on us for fast, low-cost dkiri-
buthm of ffieir imiducts; and to our lo^al engiloyees. i
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We fed diat it is our renionsibility to all these people to defend, by erssy
legiliniate meiM, this company and the low-priM pohqr on which it was ‘
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PACIFIC TEA COMPAnVj
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