Grocery Stores: Grocery Chain Stores

In 1859 George F. Gilman, a prosperous New York businessman, and George H. Hartford started selling tea in New York City. Three years later they named their business the Great American Tea Company. At the time, most grocers bought their stock from middlemen. Gilman and Hartford decided to buy tea in bulk directly from the source in China and sell directly to the customer, thereby eliminating the middleman, dramatically lowering the retail price and underselling their competition. Their system was so successful that by 1865 Hartford and Gilman had five small stores in New York City, thus creating what would become America’s first grocery chain. When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, Gilman and Hartford changed the name of their company to the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, subsequently called A&P.