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Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. struggles to survive

To some, the big concrete box in Broomall may seem like just another supermarket about to go empty. But the soon-to-be-shuttered Pathmark near West Chester Pike is more than that. It's a small player in a big saga about a supermarket giant that once was a leader in Philadelphia and now is fighting for its life.

To some, the big concrete box in Broomall may seem like just another supermarket about to go empty.

But the soon-to-be-shuttered Pathmark near West Chester Pike is more than that. It's a small player in a big saga about a supermarket giant that once was a leader in Philadelphia and now is fighting for its life.

The Delaware County store is one of two Pathmarks and two Super Fresh stores in the Philadelphia region being shut down in the coming weeks by Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. as the publicly traded firm, under its third chief executive since February, reaches for a rescue.

Although four stores might not be much, their fate illustrates how far the once-mighty Pathmark and A&P names have fallen - and may yet continue to fall. Some observers and union officials worry things may worsen, with more jobs lost and empty anchor stores, if corporate doesn't find a fix - and fast.

"A&P is in dire straits as a corporate organization," said Food Trade News publisher Jeff Metzger. Pathmark and Super Fresh are only part of what he called a "complex corporate puzzle."

"This is, to me, a question of will A&P survive a year from today," Metzger said.

Earnings are down, debt is high, and sales are down at the Montvale, N.J., company after decades of trouble. Even though it got the backing of new investors a year ago, its chains struggle against such nimble newcomers as Wal-Mart, Wegmans, and Giant.

"You talk about Acme, Pathmark, A&P - I grew up around here, they were the flagships," said Richard George, professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University. "The world's changed, you've got to change."

And the company has not, he said. At least not enough.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents about 45,000 employees at A&P stores from Connecticut to Maryland, has been scrambling to help.

"We've been meeting as groups of locals to see what we could possibly do at this point; we've been meeting with company officials," said Wendell Young IV, president of UFCW Local 1776, which represents about 200 workers at the Super Fresh stores set to close. A separate local represents Pathmark workers.

"We do expect that it's going to take some heavy lifting to turn this company around," Young said. "But the good news is that you have some people who are willing to try and turn it around and have invested heavily."

A&P's problems only intensified, some say, after it acquired Pathmark in March 2007. Pathmark itself had come out of bankruptcy when A&P, which already owned Super Fresh, scooped it up.

George, who noted that his university had benefited from the philanthropy of the Haub family, key A&P bondholders, and calls them "terrific people," nonetheless said the deal with Pathmark "never should have happened."

"At that point in time," he said, "the headline could have been: Two Giants Hobbling Toward Insolvency Are Now One."

A year ago, the Yucaipa Cos. L.L.C. invested $115 million, and a second investor kicked in $60 million.

In February, Eric Claus was replaced as CEO by Ron Marshall. In July, Marshall was replaced by Sam Martin, who in August introduced a slate of new senior executives.

"Three CEOs in the last 10 months," Metzger said, "these to me are grave warning signs, grave symptoms of a deeply rooted, problematic situation."