Boston seafood vendor Boston Sword & Tuna (BSAT) published a letter to the Save Market Basket Facebook page this week detailing its reasons for cutting off shipments to the embattled food retailer.
According to the letter written by Tim Malley, CEO of BSAT, the ongoing row between Market Basket executives and employees over the ouster of former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas created a “significant” impact on the supplier’s business. With so many stores closed due to employees on strikes and no longer accepting deliveries, BSAT was on the hook for contracted supplies of products like farmed salmon from Norway to the tune of 25,000 to 30,000 pounds a week.
“The farmed salmon was a different story — we could not simply ‘not buy.’ It kept coming and we were suddenly in the position of having to sell an extra 25,000 [pounds] of perishable seafood every week,” wrote Malley. “We were forced to significantly discount the fish to sell it. Between that and the loss of wild seafood sales we were looking at the possibility of layoffs of up to a dozen or more employees.”
Thankfully, the two companies were able to hammer out an agreement to offset BSAT’s losses and catch up on receivables. While that agreement prevented layoffs, it did not last long and the longtime swordfish and tuna supplier — a Market Basket vendor for a decade — had to threaten legal action after witnessing “one incredible strategic blunder after another.”
BSAT was eventually paid, but Market Basket issued them a check with a staggering overpayment of USD 415,000 (EUR 311,560).
“We were dumbfounded,” Malley wrote. “In my mind there could be only two answers to these accumulating mistakes and self-destructive strategies. One was that the CEOs were way over their heads. How many mistakes like this were being made? How would the shareholders from either side of the feuding family feel knowing that mistakes of this magnitude were being made. The only other explanation seemed to be a deliberate attempt to sabotage the future of the company. Every pundit with a knowledge of business has stated that the only viable buyer is Arthur T. Could the Arthur S. side of the family be so embittered by the defiance of Arthur T. and all the stakeholders supporting him that their plan is to sell him — at full pre-conflict price — a pile of smoking rubble?”
According to a report on Boston.com, five other vendors are now also saying that Market Basket overpaid them, including New Hampshire-based Canobie Seafood, by a total of USD 140,000 (EUR 105,082).
Market Basket has been a popular New England grocer since its founding in Lowell, Mass., in 1916. Employees have been on strike for several weeks since former CEO Arthur T. Demoulas was fired by the company’s board of directors, which is controlled by his cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas.
