page_title: Farmer Jack
section_title: Decline and demise
hierarchical_section_title: Farmer Jack / Decline and demise
caption_attribution_description: English: Farmer Jack
context_page_description: Farmer Jack was a supermarket chain based in Detroit, Michigan. At its peak, it operated more than 100 stores, primarily in metropolitan Detroit. In its final years, the chain operated as the Midwest subsidiary of the New Jersey-based A&P Corporation. A&P closed the Farmer Jack chain on July 7, 2007.
  Farmer Jack stores were typically in suburban neighborhoods, usually anchoring strip malls. In addition to offering groceries, each store operated full-service produce, floral, delicatessen, bakery, pharmacy, meat, and seafood departments, with some locations including a bank.
context_section_description: After initial merger pains, Farmer Jack rose to prosperity, becoming A&P’s most profitable division through the 1990s.  But in 2002, the chain began losing money.  Former executives attributed this to several reasons: 
  The decision to expand the chain beyond metro Detroit; stores in the Toledo, Flint, Saginaw and Lansing markets were unsuccessful and proved to be a major financial drain.
  The lack of capital improvements within its existing stores.  In 2001, Kroger committed to a five-year, $345M initiative to remodel or replace its existing metro Detroit stores.  In 2002-2003, Farmer Jack committed just $50M.  Analysts blamed the discrepancy on A&P’s financial woes and its need to conserve cash.
  A delayed response to the price war launched between Meijer, Kroger and Super K-Mart.
  The discontinuation of awarding Northwest Airlines mileage for purchases in late 2001, which alienated many of its affluent consumers.
  A&P's decision to lay off most local executive management, merchandising operations, accounting, advertising and marketing positions, consolidating and performing these operations from its Montvale headquarters instead.  "You really, truly need someone in the organization who knows the market, who knows the customer, [but there was] nobody left," a former executive told the Detroit Free Press.  While A&P panned local management for accounting irregularities that affected the company, former executives blamed the breadth of the layoffs on the company's desire to cut costs.
  Market Scope projected that Farmer Jack led metro Detroit in market share with 27.5% at year end 2001. It began a free fall in 2002; by the end of the year, Kroger led the market while Meijer climbed to 16.1% from 10.1% in just one year.
  In 2003, Farmer Jack announced its first round of store closures and that it would seek voluntary buyouts among its most senior employees.  In June, in a move made by the company to ‘get its consumer base back,’ but attributed by the media as a marketing gimmick, each store was closed for 37 hours so that they could be thoroughly cleaned; when the stores reopened, employees debuted with new uniforms and the loyalty card and weekly sales were discontinued in favor of everyday low pricing.  Additionally, a new marketing program titled "We’re Thinking Fresh" promoting ‘it’s fresh or it’s free - guaranteed’ was launched.  An analysis by the Detroit Free Press among a basket of commonly purchased items concluded that Farmer Jack's price had indeed went from most expensive to least expensive among its peers; however, the paper also noted that "in spite of the surface shine, some areas of the store (where the paper shopped) needed a scrubbing. The coolers looked old, a frozen food area had bent and crooked shelves, and some inner cooler door frames were dusty and dotted with bits of paper."  The paper speculated that competitors would match Farmer Jack's prices and it would suffer from the same problems it had before the makeover.
  In early 2004, ten Farmer Jack locations were converted into A&P's Food Basics format in an attempt to compete with discount chains such as Save-A-Lot.  Less than a year later, nine were closed while the other—a new-build store in Dearborn Heights—was converted into a Farmer Jack.  Simultaneously, the closure of 15 Farmer Jacks was announced; four more closures were announced later in the year.
  In early 2005, A&P placed Farmer Jack for sale, seeking an estimated $250M for 71 core stores; the remaining locations were offered individually.  Later that year, workers approved wage cuts conditional on a sale to Spartan Stores—which was led by several former Farmer Jack executives, including its CEO Dennis Edison who led Farmer Jack until his dismissal in 2002, but the deal fell through.  Workers then approved a similar package of cuts in exchange for A&P guaranteeing to keep the stores open through May 2007.  A&P, which was unable to find a buyer for Farmer Jack, said the chain would break even for the year and therefore A&P—which had just received a cash injection from the sale of its Canadian di
caption: A Farmer Jack store with a liquidation sign displayed
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