Major vendor criticizes, cuts ties with Market Basket
A major seafood vendor for Market Basket said in a fiery 1,300-word Facebook post it will no longer do business with the embattled, Massachusetts-based supermarket chain.
The Boston Globe reported that Boston Sword & Tuna, which typically has $10 million in annual sales to Market Basket, decided to sever ties after the chain made what it characterized as serious mistakes, including overpaying the vendor by more than $415,000 in one situation. The vendor has also been losing money due to reduced purchase orders.
“We think the time has nearly run out for saving this great institution and all those who depend on it,” Tim Malley, Boston Sword & Tuna’s CEO, said in a Facebook post on Monday, later telling the newspaper he decided to go public out of concern for other vendors.
Malley told the Boston Globe that he suspects the decisions made by Market Basket’s co-CEOs, Felicia Thornton and James Gooch, were done through the orders of the company’s board of directors, who fired former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas in June, prompting a massive boycott by customers and workers across the company’s 71 stores. The co-CEOs threatened to fire more than 200 protesting workers last week if they didn’t return.
The Associated Press reported that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan have been working with Market Basket in an attempt to negotiate a sale between the company’s two owners — majority shareholder Arthur S. Demoulas and his cousin, minority shareholder Arthur T. They say a deal may be “within reach” for the supermarket chain that opened its first Maine location in Biddeford last year.
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