A & P Scare

"We do not attempt to push our own brands," said swarthy President John Hartford of Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. in 1930. "We leave it to our customers to buy what they want. Of all the food products we handle, only 10% comprise private brands which may be regarded as strictly competitive with national labels."

Around the question of what if any changes President Hartford might now admit in this policy a brief tempest raged last fortnight in the Great Atlantic & Pacific teapot. Reproduced on the January cover of the advertising magazine Tide was a yellow handbill circulated last month by A & P stores in New Orleans. Headlined "Compare! Save 29%!" the handbill listed in parallel columns 15 nationally known food products against 15 equivalents manufactured by A & P, all sold in A & P stores. The prices in the outside brand column added up to $2.40; those in the A & P products column to $1.70. Though A & P handbills regularly make a tacit comparison between national brands and A & P's, this was the first instance of an explicit price challenge. Investigating the feelings of big food manufacturers, Tide reported that they were in "conniptions."

In Manhattan, President Paul S. Willis of the Associated Grocery Manufacturers of America responded acidly: "I am thoroughly familiar with the practice of trade puffing; but I have never seen national brands held up as a yardstick in this fashion. In my opinion, this practice falls into the category of unfair methods of competition."

In the past six years the ratio of A & P's private brands to other merchandise on A & P shelves has increased immeasurably. If A & P decided to discredit national brands as a preliminary to making everything it sold, that would be horrid news to U. S. foodmen. That the New-Orleans handbill might be the opening gun in just such a campaign was the dizziest speculation that occurred to food manufacturers. Another was that the handbills were intended as a gratuitous slap at the Robinson-Patman Act (against price discrimination). After foodmen had stewed for a full week in these possibilities, A & P's President Hartford disowned the cat that had popped out of his bag. From Manhattan he ordered all A & P district managers not to duplicate the New Orleans' district manager's independent performance. The company announced that the handbill was a "regrettable" mistake, that A & P's sales policy remained unchanged.

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