John Augustine Hartford

John Augustine Hartford (February 10, 1872 – September 20, 1951) was the longtime President of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company ("A&P"), serving in that position for 35 years from 1916 until his death. His father, George Huntington Hartford (1833–1917) left the control of the company's voting stock to a trust that gave total control to John and his older brother George Ludlum Hartford (1864–1957) who served as chairman. John, who one company historian named the "Merchant Prince", ran the business operations side of the empire, while his brother George ran the financial side. Time magazine interviewed John and his brother George who were on their cover in November 1950. Time wrote that "going to the A&P was almost an American tribal rite". The Wall Street Journal in an editorial on August 29, 2011, wrote "Together the brothers, neither of whom had finished high school, built what would be, for 40 years, the largest retail outlet in the world." The New York Times in an editorial on September 7, 2011, wrote that John and George Hartford "were among the 20th century's most accomplished and visionary businessmen."

Born and raised in Orange, New Jersey, John Hartford started his career at A&P in 1888 after finishing high school. Far more outgoing that either his father or older brother, John traveled extensively and became the team's representative in the far flung empire. After his father acquired ownership of the company from the estate of George Gilman, the company's founder, John lead the company's expansion and the firm became the largest grocery chain by 1915. He reinvented the company three times: the economy grocery store concept in 1912; the combination grocery/meat/produce store in the mid-1920s; and the self serve supermarket in the late 1930s. He owned a large Tudor manor house in Valhalla, New York and maintained a suite at the Plaza Hotel. John had no children and left his estate to the John A. Hartford Foundation.

Life and career John Hartford was born in Orange, New Jersey and was the fourth child of George Huntington Hartford (1832–1917) and Marie Josephine Ludium (1837–1915). John's father was already an executive at the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company which his father would then own. Mr. Hartford was also elected Mayor of Orange when John was six and served as both Mayor and Gilman's partner. At an early age, John demonstrated an entrepreneurial spirit when on St. Patrick's day he parked his father's buggy along the parade route and charged people to climb up to get a better view. After completing high school, he joined A&P, working at a company warehouse. with sales of $400 million and profit of $10 million. John convinced George to decentralize management into regions but George insisted that headquarters retain control of finances, real estate, and purchasing policy, the areas he personally managed. The company introduced larger "combination stores" including space for meats, produce, and dairy as well as traditional grocery items, and launched a new drive to reduce costs. By 1930 the company's 16,000 stores reached sales of $1 billion.

A&P's sales and profits increased during the early years of the Depression because of the company's ability to deliver low prices. Meanwhile, a few entrepreneurs experimented with large self-service "supermarkets" that offered even lower prices. John held back opening his first supermarket until 1936. Over the next two years, the company opened 1,100 of the larger stores. The chain continued to rebuild itself so that by 1950 A&P operated 4,000 supermarkets and 500 smaller combination stores. Sales reached $3.2 billion with an after-tax profit of $32 million. The San Francisco Call-Bulletin wrote "John A. Hartford belonged to a little group of Americans whose energy and vision made us the most prosperous nation in the world. He pioneered in foodstuffs just as Henry Ford did in Transportation. Their philosophy was blunt and simple, just as most works of genius are simple, sell more for less." The Columbus Georgia Ledger wrote "What Ford meant to transportation, what Edison meant to electricity, what Burbank meant to Horticulture, John Hartford meant to Food Retailing in America." The Davenport Daily Times wrote "In the death of Mr. John there passes a Retail Napoleon. He had a Grocery Empire as Ford had an Automobile Empire, Rockefeller an Oil Empire, Carnegie a Steel Empire. We shall not see their like again."