The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company (A&P) was the largest grocery retailer in the USA for the first half of the 20th Century. The management had the resources to be able to lower consumer prices and at the same time keep their profits just above the break-even point. Most small retailers, many not able to stay afloat for more than a year anyway, hated chain stores because they were unable to compete with this strategy. Congressional lobbyists set out to destroy A&P with ridiculously high taxes in the mid-1930s then suggested splitting the dominating store into several companies in the 1940s. The attacks were against any large chain store, but being by far the largest of them all, A&P was especially hit hard with unproven accusations and a lack of understanding of how their business model worked, even into the 1950s. The eventual death of both controlling brothers left its successor unequipped to modernize A&P's conservative management. During the 1960s few were shopping at their outdated supermarkets with higher prices. A&P's constant battles were something to behold.
An excellent consensus of what happened to A&P.
Read about A&P's famous Eight O'Clock Coffee.
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