Business: The Price of Grandma's Pride

Ann Page cooks up a diet of knockwurst and sauerkraut

YOU'LL DO BETTER AT A & P, insists the latest ad slogan of the not-so-Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., whose $7.2 billion in sales make it the nation's third largest supermarket chain (after Safeway and Kroger). Last week one of West Germany's largest food retailers unexpectedly took the 120-year-old company at its word. The private Tengelmann Group made a friendly deal to pay $78.5 million to four holders of A & P stock, including heirs of the founding Hartford family,* for their 42% controlling interest in the ailing giant.

Affectionately known to...