George Huntington Hartford

Hartford, George Huntington (1833–1917), U.S. merchant, cofounder of the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P). Started as a tea trading company (1859), the corporation was expanded to a mail order house, and then to a chain of retail stores (1869). The stores were the forerunners of the modern supermarket (the first A&P supermarkets opened in 1936).