The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company’s E-town roots

In this week’s best birthday wishes, we remember a grocer who ran the local and iconic A&P in Elizabethtown. From a letter from a surviving relative, “ My Uncle Fletcher McDuffie opened and managed the A&P in Elizabethtown,” Marshall Blakely said. I’m Not sure of the year. Thought I would send it your way in case you wanted to feature a bit if history.

“I can only presume this was cut from the Bladen Journal. My mom’s family (my grand mother and grandfather) Erastus McDuffie & Mariam McDuffie lived in Elizabethtown so we visited during my childhood. (1970-1983) They are all buried down there now but I have great memories or going to the big Red Barn to shop and going over the big bridge.”

ELIZABETHTOWN – Elizabethtown has a brand-new A&P Store. The new facility is located at Swanzy and Poplar Streets and features some of the most modern convivences of any food store in North Carolina.

The store, headed by Fletcher McDuffie, offers a complete line of stable goods, meats, beauty-health aids and produce.

The construction of the new store not only offers added variety of groceries, but has created, what the area really needs, more jobs.

While still in its old quarters, the A&P had a staff of 8, full-time and part-time employees, now the store will have 30 full and part-time workers with an increase of 22.

The new store will open its doors, officially, tomorrow morning at 8:30 with an informal ceremony. All are invited to attend.

From its very start over 100 years ago as a small but brash discounter of tea, A&P has played a leading role in modern food retailing’s most significant attributes: efficient distribution, low margins, consumer value.

It is by far the world’s largest food retailing organization, Sales average more than $100 million a week. Employees are counted in the tens of thousands, and stores and other facilities are located throughout the nation.

Whether innovating, seizing upon a trend or even hesitating over new developments, so great is its size and scope that A&P greatly influences the course of events for all segments of the food business —The farmer, manufacturer and processor, distributors of all sizes and types, right down to the smallest independent store.

And behind it all are the key people that made the organization and move it today – the company’s bearded founder, his sons “Mr. John” and “Mr. George” and their loyal, hard-working executives… and on through history to A&P’s present chief executive, up from the ranks as a part-time clerk.

The A&P Saga is both frantic and dramatic, which is about what any super market operator would expect, knowing the nature of the food business. In A&P’s case, however, the drama and high level of activity are far above ordinary exper-

Elizabethtown’s new A&P store features 21,000 square feet of floor space stocked with a more complete line of produce, stable goods, meats, and health and beauty aids. The new store opened this morning, Monday, April 21, for area patrons to get a “sneak preview”. The official opening will be held tomorrow morning at 8:30 with an informal ceremony. The store is located at Swanzy and Poplar Streets behind the present Clark Bros. Chrysler-Plymouth dealership.

DISTRICT SUPERVISOR B. H. Ledford, center, for A&P Stores poses with Elizabethtown’s local A&P store manager, Fletcher McDuffie (right) and Herold McCall. Assistant manager for the store, left. The new store, located at Poplar and Swanzy Streets will open officially Tuesday morning at 8:30. McDuffie invited the public to drop in today for what he called, “a sneak preview” of his store.

“The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P, was an American chain of grocery stores that operated from 1859 to 2015. From 1915 through 1975, A&P was the largest grocery retailer in the United States (and, until 1965, the largest U.S. retailer of any kind).

A&P was considered an American icon that, according to The Wall Street Journal, “was as well-known as McDonald’s or Google is today,” and “the Walmart of its time.” At its peak in the 1940s, A&P captured 10% of total US grocery spending.^[5] Known for innovation, A&P improved consumers’ nutritional habits by making available a vast assortment of food products at much lower costs.^[6] Until 1982, A&P also was a large food manufacturer.^[7]

A&P was founded in 1859 as “Gilman & Company” by George Gilman, who opened a small chain of retail tea and coffee stores in New York City, and then expanded to a national mail order business. The firm grew to 70 stores by 1878; by 1900, it operated almost 200 stores. A&P grew dramatically by introducing the economy store concept in 1912, growing to 1,600 stores by 1915. After World War I, it added stores that offered meat and produce, while expanding manufacturing.” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%26P