Too bad the Demoulas family can’t thrash their competition with the kind of insane gusto with which they go after each other.
There are dysfunctional families, extremely dysfunctional families, and then there are the Demoulas, who have taken the family feud to a murderous new level in their battle over the Market Basket empire. The Bay State’s long-reigning first family of groceries has picked the worst possible time for its latest bout of insanity, with Market Basket suddenly facing a full-scale invasion of its home turf by Wegmans, the Empire State’s supermarket superpower.
As the Demoulas family spends their days gunning for each other in the boardroom and court, Wegmans is taking dead aim at Market Basket and other local supermarket mainstays, touting its low prices and making its new Boston-area stores the centerpiece of some of the area’s hottest new developments.
As a local boy who has shopped at Market Basket for years, I’m rooting for the home team. But the fate of Market Basket is bigger than just hometown loyalty – the store is a locally-owned bulwark of low prices at a time when prices across the board – from homes to gas – are going haywire.
Wegmans Hot, Market Basket Not
The shifting fortunes of these two supermarket giants, one on the rise, the other stumbling dangerously, are on stark display in the local development market.
Wegmans is hot right now, having cannily ridden into the Boston-area market from its New York State stronghold on a wave of new development.
Wegmans teamed up with mall king and New England Development chief Steve Karp on its first foray into Massachusetts, becoming a lead tenant in Karp’s Northborough Crossing power center. The store drew thousands of shoppers and shattered records during its first few days in business in 2011.
The relationship forged with Karp, one of New England’s legendary developers – best known for the Cambridgeside Galleria, the redevelopment of Pier 4, and a bid for the Red Sox – has served Wegmans well. Not coincidentally, Wegmans became the anchor store for Karp’s latest blockbuster project, Chestnut Hill Square, launching the supermarket into Boston’s coveted inner suburbs. And Wegmans will be a key feature of Karp’s planned Westwood Station project, set to take shape off Route 128 near the University Avenue commuter rail station.
Separately, Wegmans has teamed up with another powerhouse developer, Nordbloom, with a new store set to open this fall in Burlington, also just off 128.
If that weren’t enough, Wegmans has scored the ultimate development coup, a beachhead in Boston itself. The supermarket chain has inked a deal to go into Steve Samuels Landmark Center project in the Fenway. That’s a nut Market Basket, despite decades in the local market, has yet to crack, with no store to be found in the state’s largest city.
New Stores In Limbo
But as Wegmans surges into Eastern Massachusetts, the Demoulas family has been doing a darn good impression of Nero, the infamous Roman emperor who supposedly fiddled while fire consumed Rome.
After a years-long power struggle, Arthur T. Demoulas, the company’s popular president who fought hard to keep Market Basket’s hugely successful formula of low-priced groceries and fairly paid staff, was ousted by his cousin Arthur S. Demoulas.
Pressed on his plans, Arthur S. released a statement to the local media saying there are no plans to back away from Market’s current 4-percent discount on all items, set to expire at year-end, though no commitment has been made beyond that.
But the promises are belied by months of simmering discontent among Market Basket employees, who were big backers of ousted chief Arthur T. and have warned that cousin Arthur S. is interested in boosting his bottom line by cutting pay and boosting prices. To be fair, Arthur S. finally wrested away the reins of family’s grocery empire only last month, but it’s a rather inauspicious beginning.
Meanwhile, as Arthur S. was pushing home his coup, the limbo put a huge strain on Market Basket’s relationship with local officials and developers. Two new Market Baskets, one in Revere, the other in Attleboro, have sat empty for months, fully built but unoccupied, sparking angry responses from mayors of the two communities and a lawsuit by a developer.
The family’s civil war also caused a temporary shutdown last year in work on the new Market Basket planned for the giant Polaroid campus redevelopment in Waltham just off Route 128, though that project has since remained on track and on time.
Amid fierce competition among supermarket chains for slots in prime developments, this is hardly the kind of behavior that is going to win over the gatekeepers – also known as local developers.
Maybe, with a little stability in the company’s leadership, Market Basket can repair some of those frayed relations. But if the Demoulas family’s commitment to the core values that built Market Basket is truly fading, well then, all bets are off.
The examples out there are hardly encouraging. Other once-locally owned chains – I have one in particular in mind – have faded into mediocrity under distant ownership. If you are lucky enough to find an employee in the aisles, they don’t know where to find things – and they don’t seem to care. Discount card gimmicks simply smear lipstick on the pig of rising prices.
While clean, Market Basket stores are nothing to write home about. The draw has been amiable and helpful employees and noticeably lower prices, a combo that has gone far, given the abysmal level of the competition pre-Wegmans.
But Wegmans has made it clear that it will go head-to-head with Market Basket and other chains on prices, a pledge it has already made good on with display boards in its stores showing its price for key items compared to its competitors.
Not to mention that Wegmans stores are veritable palaces compared to your run-of-the-mill Market Baskets and Stop & Shops, with employees that appear to have been brainwashed into some sort of customer service cult.
The Market Basket brand still means something, especially in Eastern Massachusetts. Here’s hoping the perpetually-feuding Demoulas family realizes that before they squander a painstakingly built legacy.
Email: sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
