To the Editor:

I would like to respond to your editorial on the return of Market Basket. We are all happy that MB is back and their workers are all earning paychecks again. If this had continued much longer it would have buried the company and caused possible layoffs.

First of all, the writer should not be attacking Whole Foods or “the grocery chain that shall remain unnamed” (how juvenile). These grocers along with Hannaford, Target and Walmart all took care of the MB customers during the walkout at great expense to their workers and regular customers. They should be thanked rather than attacked. Many of these workers worked 7 days a week instead of enjoying their summer.

The MB strike was a family fight that should have been settled in the boardroom not in the parking lot where it inconvenienced their customers.

It also was disingenuous to compare the price of sea scallops and apples from one chain to another. The quality of meat, produce and seafood can vary significantly and is not a fair comparison. A better comparison would have been a box of cereal or a jar of peanut butter. The supermarket business is very aggressive with profit margins that average between 1-5% so the answer in not as simple as Easy: Cut prices.

MB has been fortunate that as a family-run business they have not incurred any debt and don’t answer to shareholders who want return on their investment. Artie T. will have to figure out a way to make up for 6 weeks of lost sales, pay back the 1.5 BILLION dollars he just borrowed and keep those prices low. Now that the writer’s “old low cost friend is back,” why don’t you ask them to deliver a truckload of peanut butter, cereal and diapers to Share or the NH Food Bank for the inconvenience they caused all their NH customers while they fought each other like spoiled children.

Michael Corkery

Amherst