Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1948-02-13
By Ben Dor
LPA COIumniSt

LIZA COlu0nlSC
Dollars will be bullets in the
war that's brewing in Pontiac,
Mich. 1t will be another one
of those battles between little
David and one of the biggest
Goliaths in history-the great,
big A & P. And the David in
the case will be little grocery
store with a big sign on it that
says COOP"
Maybe you saw the story in
your labor paper when the
coop store opened in Pontiac a
few weeks ago. 1t marked the
end of weeks of study and
work by the AFL and CIO
Deople who sparkplugged the
project.
BY the end of the next day,
the piles had melted away,
and the store had to be closed
down so that the checkout
counter could be moved over
and two more installed to
handle the crowd. After two
weeks of business, it seems
quite clear that the people of
Pontiac like their coop, and
like the savings that they are
making by buying from it.
There's no question about
the prices; they are lower than
super-market prices either in
Pontiac or in nearby Detroit.
Men drove into Detroit and
checked the coop prices against
the super market prices in De-
troit. They found that the CO.
op was about &c an article
cheaper on practically every.
thing that the store had for
sale.
STORE STOCK
/ said everything that they
can buy at the coop; what /
mean is that the coop doesn't
try to sell everything that the
chain stores sell. When the
Pontiac committee Stocke d
their store, they left out, on
purpose, those things that the
chain stores sell as "loss lead
ers" or at very small margins
of profit"
That's a new way to run a
coop. BIT it's not the only
new thing about this one. For
instance, this one is not on a
main, downtown street; it's out
on a road that runs through
the factory area. That's where
the workers find it convenient
to shop.
GROWING
Maybe you think it won't
work. Maybe you're right. But
don't be too sure. Meanwhile,
volume is growing, business is
booming and some of the coop
people go around with amazed
looks on their faces-kind of
like a duck that expected a
ducklin and hatched out an ac-
tive, robust ostrich instead.
The A & P people, however,
let's come back to them. They
are more than amazed. They
are worried. They come around
every once in a while to see
how the coop is getting along.
And it's quite plain that they
don't like what they see. The
rumors are flying that the
A & p is getting ready to de-
clare war - to begin cutting
prices in order to drive this
upstart business out of town.
Don't think they can't do it;
dozens of times the big chains
have slashed prices below costs
to drive an indepedendent mer-
chant out of business. OF
course, they have plenty of
profits to keep them going
during the price war, and then
they can shoot prices up as
far as they like after the inde-
pendent has been kicked out.
But are the co.operators
worried? Nope. When you
talk to them about it, they
smile and talk about the other
tricks they have up their
sleeve - like farm produce,
brought direct to the coop by
the farmers who grow it, to be
sold at a price that gives both
farmer and consumer a real
break.
But the thing that gets the
biggest smile from the CO.
operators - the biggest joke
of all, to hear them tell it
is the fact that the price war
will help them to do even bet
ter what they set up their
store to do; that is, to save
people money on food.
This coop has put little
money into fixtures; their
store was too well-planned for
that. Almost all their money
is in food and other household
necessities that can't go wrong.
And he's saving people money
at the same time. And boy, is
he having fun!