AP Images As Artie T. Demoulas addressed a crowd of hundreds of workers on the lawn of the Market Basket headquarters, he sounded more like a left-wing union organizer than the centimillionaire CEO of a grocery empire. "No one person is better or more important than another," Demoulas said, dropping his Rs in a New England accent, his brow slick in the August heat. "Whether it's a full-timer or a part-timer, a sacker or a cashier, a grocery clerk or a truck driver or a warehouse selectman, a store manager, a supervisor, a customer, a vendor, or a CEO — we are all equal." The speech marked the culmination of a bizarre labor battle that had come to define the summer of 2014 in New England. Amid a long-standing feud with a rival branch of his family, led by his cousin Artie S. Demoulas, the Market Basket board of directors voted to oust Artie T. as CEO that June. Artie T., who had spent decades building the supermarket brand into a profitable New England powerhouse, did not go quietly. The CEO had built a fierce loyalty among Market Basket employees and customers. He had developed a reputation as a generous but unassuming executive who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty on the shop floor. When he made store visits, he would often stop and carry bags for customers. He remembered clerks' and butchers' names and helped them with medical expenses. "He was a great guy who would always listen to you," says Dan Jarvis, a 20-year Market Basket veteran, who remembers Artie T. showing up at his grandmother's funeral. For many locals, he had come to represent a bygone era of corporate decency, when executives put the needs of their workers and customers before their shareholders' bank accounts. In the weeks after his firing, employees organized walkouts and picket lines at all 71 Market Basket franchises. Warehouse workers and teamsters stopped making deliveries, leaving shelves bare. Mostly non-union workers and managers were picketing, not for better wages or working conditions, but to bring back their boss. "I haven't seen anything like that in all the years I studied labor relations in the United States," says Thomas A. Kochan, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, who wrote a case study on the standoff. Customers also began boycotting the chain. They wore "Artie T. Strong" T-shirts, bought posters depicting him in the style of the Barack Obama "Hope" image, and taped receipts from rival grocers to Market Basket store windows. The general feeling that summer was that Artie T. was for the people, while Artie S. was for the shareholders — an impression reinforced by the board's 2013 decision to distribute $300 million in a dividend to shareholders over Artie T.'s objections. It seemed highly likely that the new leadership would sell the chain. By late August, Market Basket had lost out on an estimated $750 million in revenue. On August 27, to stanch the bleeding, Artie S. and the board reached a deal to sell the majority of the company back to Artie T. and his three sisters for $1.6 billion, and reinstate him as CEO. The speech on the headquarters lawn in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, in front of a line of Market Basket-branded semi-trailers and workers holding signs emblazoned with Artie T.'s face, was his victory lap. He thanked the customers and workers for standing by him, and gave special thanks to his sisters, whose backing had made the deal possible. His triumph had launched him into the pantheon of New England folk heroes occupied by the likes of Big Papi and Tom Brady. But the victory was not as secure as it seemed. After the sale, Artie T. faced a mountain of debt, a succession crisis, and a fragile alliance with his sisters that would soon begin to fray, until it devolved into a bitter campaign of public mudslinging. A decade later, the CEO would be fighting for control of his company once again, not on the picket lines, but in a Delaware courtroom. For many New Englanders, Artie T. Demoulas had come to represent a bygone era of corporate decency. AP Images Business Insider dug through hundreds of pages of court documents to get the behind the scenes story of the battle for New England's grocery empire. Market Basket is a New England institution, now with 32,000 employees, 95 locations, and $8 billion in annual revenue. Working-class New Englanders are intensely loyal to the chain, where food is high-quality yet affordable, and the checkout counters are staffed not by robots but by relatively well-compensated associates in ties and jackets. A 2026 study by the consulting firm Strategic Resource Group found that commonly purchased groceries at Market Basket are substantially more affordable than comparable regional competitors like Wegmans, Stop & Shop, and Hannaford. It began in 1917 in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, where Greek immigrants Athanasios and Efrosini Demoulas opened a grocery store to serve the working-class community in the city's Greek neighborhood. Back then, many customers paid on credit, and Athanasios often delivered groceries free of charge. The couple's sons, Telemachus and George, bought the business from their parents in 1954, and began a steady expansion, riding the wave of the "supermarket revolution" in the 1950s. At one point, Artie T. reportedly took a swing at Artie S. in the back of the courtroom. Artie T., Telemachus' son, grew up working various jobs throughout the family business — bagging produce, deboning chicken, and stocking shelves — before climbing the corporate ladder. He took over as president and CEO in 2008. As Market Basket grew, it also developed a reputation for acidic family drama. After George's death in 1971, a rift emerged between the two branches of Demoulas's that would define the company for decades, as George's branch began to feel as though they were being sidelined in the growing company. In 1990, George's branch, to which Artie S. belonged, sued Telemachus for allegedly defrauding them out of their shares of the company. Artie S. had also worked his way up the company, but pulled back from day-to-day affairs after the lawsuit. The suit culminated in a grinding four-month trial, in which, at one point, Artie T. reportedly took a swing at Artie S. in the back of the courtroom. Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez ultimately ruled in favor of George's branch, awarding them $206 million and 50.5% of the company. The feud kept getting stranger. In 1990, six surveillance bugs were found in the Market Basket headquarters, and Artie T.'s faction accused Artie S.'s of wiretapping their office in order to coordinate legal strategy. (Artie S. was later cleared of wiretapping allegations.) In 1997, lawyers from Artie T's faction concocted an elaborate scheme that could have been a plotline in "Better Call Saul": Their lawyers arranged a series of fake job interviews with one of Lopez's court clerks, and recorded them in an attempt to dig up dirt on the judge. Two lawyers were disbarred when this came to light. The family turmoil culminated in Artie T.'s 2014 firing and summer of labor action. Though the mood at Market Basket after the summer of 2014 was exuberant, the company had limped out of the fight bruised and bloodied. To buy out his cousins' side of the business, Artie T. and his sisters had taken out a loan for $1.6 billion. It was the first time in the Market Basket's history that they had taken on debt. "We knew we had to run the ship tight for a couple years," says Stephen Hilton, who was working in the butcher department at the Fitchburg location at the time. "Everybody was a little more nervous." Some employees saw their hours cut. After Massachusetts passed a bill removing the requirement that employers pay time and a half on Sundays, Market Basket cut workers' Sunday pay. As Hilton saw it, these conditions slowly eroded some employees' loyalty to their CEO. "Everyone was disappointed they couldn't maintain everything over time," he says. And as old-timers retired, they were replaced by new employees who didn't have the same memories of the uprising. To make things worse for Artie T., he was steadily losing his board. After the strike, the new board had been packed with loyalists; Artie T. later said he could not "think of anything" his board "voted against that [he] wanted to do." Over the ensuing decade, a more adversarial board began to take its place. "The best succession plan is no succession plan," Caren Demoulas Pasquale recounted Artie T. saying, slamming his hand down on the desk. While Artie T. was the largest individual shareholder, with 28% of the company, his three sisters Caren, Glorianne, and Frances, together held about 60% following the 2014 sale. This wouldn't have been a problem if they were getting along, but they had been steadily drifting apart. Court documents show that the family relationship was strained by 2019. The exact reasons for the fallout remain opaque, but one contributing factor appears to be a breakdown in communication. "Please Artie, as our leader you must try to foster more open communication between the four of us," Glorianne Demoulas Farnham wrote in a 2019 letter to her younger brother. Otherwise, she went on, "I am pessimistic about how things will proceed moving forward between the family." And there was the issue of succession. Frances Demoulas Kettenbach, the eldest sibling, hoped that her son, Mike Kettenbach, then working as a deli supervisor, might be next in line for the throne. Caren Demoulas Pasquale, the youngest sister, also hoped that her sons could gain a better foothold in the company. Caren hoped to discuss the company's succession plan at one board meeting, but Artie T. quickly shut down the conversation. "The best succession plan is no succession plan," she recounted him saying in court testimony, slamming his hand down on the desk. Each time a member of the board retired, they were replaced by a new member supported by the coalition of sisters. By 2023, the board was composed of a 3-2 majority of directors backed by the sisters and opposed by Artie T. He had refused to give out his cell phone to some of them, and rarely interacted with them outside of board meetings."My brother was always threatened with any board member that he didn't put on himself," Caren said in court. The new board was growing tired of what they described as Artie T.'s "autocratic" management style. It was hard to pry information from him — they felt that they didn't have a clear picture of the annual budget or capital expenditure plans. Artie T. also didn't bring other executives to meetings, leaving the board feeling isolated. Both Artie T. and the Market Basket board declined to comment for this article, through their respective PR teams. Still, the company remained profitable, adding more than 20 locations in the decade after the boycott. By 2024, they had finally paid off their debt from the 2014 sale. It was that summer that the new board decided to make a move to rein in their CEO. Jay Hachigian, a founding partner of the law firm Gunderson Dettmer, had joined the board in 2021, making him a relative newcomer at a company where employees often stay for decades. He was neighbors with Caren in the wealthy suburb of Weston, Massachusetts, and his wife had been friends with her since high school. Artie T. and Hachigian quickly began to butt heads. In a 2023 email to Hachigian and fellow new board member and private equity investor Steven Collins, Artie T. accused the pair of "disregard for the fundamental business philosophies" of Market Basket, and claimed that they would "erode and eventually destroy" the company. He copied all the Market Basket shareholders on the thread. In the summer of 2024, Hachigian drafted a list of demands that he hoped would bring Artie T. back under board control. "This was a serious thing," Hachigian later said in court testimony. "Boards don't pass resolutions like this and give them to CEOs. This, in my entire career, has never happened." On August 22, the board voted 3-2 to present Hachigian's resolutions to Artie T. How does a business run for the next 50 years with an autocrat making all the decisions?Market Basket board member Michael Keyes The list requested that Artie T. provide the board with more information on budgets and capital expenditure projects, bring other executives to board meetings, and not celebrate the anniversary of the 2014 walkout. This point was important. The document insisted that the company not produce any content that "in any way recognizes, celebrates or thanks customers, employees, or others" in connection to the walkout. It also insisted that leadership of the company would not pass to Artie T.'s children Madeline and T.A. Demoulas, both of whom were Market Basket executives. Artie T. looked at the list and asked to step out of the room to review it further. When he returned about 20 minutes later, he was angry and agitated, Hachigian remembers. They talked through the list for about an hour. The succession item was a primary point of contention, but what especially bothered Artie T. was the bit about the walkout. "I've never known a retailer, ever, in my life… not wanting to acknowledge or thank the customers or the associates," he later said at trial. "And when something is good for the company, why would one not want it to take place?" Hachigian didn't think the boycott had been good for the company. After all, it had brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. "If it happened once," he said, at trial, "it could happen again." Despite the board's urging, Artie T. commemorated the 2014 strike shortly after, paying out a $15 million bonus to employees in recognition of the anniversary, without board approval. Hachigian saw the move as an attempt to ensure the workers' loyalty. In January 2025, the board further consolidated power by ousting the Artie T.-friendly Terry Carleton. And in March, they replaced Bill Shea, the one remaining Artie T. loyalist, with Hachigian as board chairman. At that meeting, Artie T. accused Hachigian, Collins, and new board member Michael Keyes of "destroying the company" and called them "incompetent," "classless," and "walk-ons" before storming out, several board members recall. He was not invited to the next board meeting. That spring, two executives, including Frances's son Michael Kettenbach, informed the board that another walkout in support of Artie T. might be in the works. In April, recently retired executive Tom Trainor told Hachigian he thought a boycott would be unlikely to succeed this time. In his opinion, morale was low, and Artie T.'s lieutenants weren't broadly liked. "It's totally different than '14," he said at trial. The board decided that it was time to go for the kill. On May 28, Artie T. was on the phone with his produce director at the company headquarters when Joe Schmidt, a 39-year employee of Market Basket, came into his office. There were security guards in the parking lot, Schmidt told him. Artie T. saw them out the window. Then he saw Hachigian and Collins approaching. Artie T. and his daughter Madeline met Collins and Hachigian at his office door. Hachigian remembers Artie T. being irritated that they were not wearing ties. Collins handed him a letter of suspension that an executive committee of the anti-Artie faction board members had voted on the day before. "Things aren't really working out," Collins told him. "The company is running fantastic," Artie T. said. "What are you doing here?" He reviewed the letter and saw there was an item about him orchestrating a new work stoppage. "What in the world is this?" he said. With help from his children, Artie T. packed up his office and piled boxes into a truck outside while Hachigian and Collins watched from the window. A press junket formed outside the headquarters. "How does a business run for the next 50 years with an autocrat making all the decisions?" board member Keyes asked the assembled media. Then the purge began. The board suspended anyone who seemed like they might back a major work stoppage. Schmidt was fired, as were other long-time executives, and Artie T's children. Anyone perceived as too loyal to the old guard got the ax. Two months later, security cameras at the Somerville Market Basket picked up Schmidt and fellow Artie T. lieutenant Tom Gordon entering the store, wearing full suits in the 90-degree heat. Schmidt gave the camera a wave and a tight-lipped smile. Market Basket has 32,000 employees, 95 locations, and $8 billion in annual revenue. MediaNews Group/ Getty Images The pair had secretly held on to their master keys after they were fired, and had been making their way through some 30 Market Baskets across the state. That summer, they also began communicating with Artie T. via burner phones, court records showed. The board caught wind, and filed for an injunction against the two men. On August 14, a judge forbade Schmidt and Gordon from stepping foot on any Market Basket property. Meanwhile, both sides hired PR firms and mounted press campaigns to make their case to the public. Cartoons mocking the sisters and board members began popping up on pro-Artie T. Market Basket social media pages. One AI-generated cartoon shows the three sisters lounging on a beach, above the caption "Non-working Market Basket Shareholders." "It's not fair that I only get $40 million a year," cartoon Frances says. "Can we scrap the bonus plan?" The board, in press releases and media statements, framed the conflict as an internal family dispute, and insisted that nothing would fundamentally change in the wake of the firing. "In 2014, the board was taken by surprise and only had a very ineffective public relations response," says Kochan, the MIT professor. "This time, they were on the offense." In July, the CEO of the Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe, calling for another boycott in support of the ousted CEO. Hachigian responded to D'Alessandro with a harsh letter that found its way into the press. The proposed boycott never materialized, even after Artie T. was officially fired that September. To Kochan, while the 2014 firing felt like an existential, company-altering decision, this firing felt more like a family feud. "I don't think it was significant enough for anyone to put their jobs or other interests at risk," he says. The matter would be decided in the courts. In February 2026, Artie T. was in surprisingly good spirits, considering that he was fighting for his job in Delaware Chancery Court. In a loose-fitting black suit and a maroon tie, the same one worn by Market Basket store directors, he greeted his legal team with an easy smile and made small talk about the US National Team's recent hockey match. Keyes and Hachigian sat on the opposite side of the courtroom — not looking at their former CEO. His sisters weren't present, and Artie T. acknowledged during the trial that they haven't spoken in years. Artie T. monitored the arguments intently, his fingertips steepled, his mouth sometimes tightening into a slight grimace. It was the final day of a bitter trial, in which both sides attacked the fundamental integrity of the other. It was an unusual case; firing a CEO whose company is performing well financially is rare. Artie T.'s lawyers argued that the firing was in bad faith, serving the interests of the sisters instead of the company. The board's lawyers said that the move was justified to prevent a boycott and protect the long-term financial health of the chain. A month later, the ruling came down. The firing was upheld. In 2014, Artie's firing felt like a threat to Market Basket's very existence. This time, it's a little less clear what will happen to the ethos of the brand. The board installed Don Mulligan, the longtime chief financial officer, as acting CEO, and later promoted Chuck Casassa, another Market Basket old-timer, to the role, a move that Kochan sees as "dampening employees' fears." (Frances and Caren's children were also elevated after Artie's firing.) Board members have insisted there are no plans to sell. Combing through the Market Basket social media pages, you can find plenty of customers who have noticed small changes in the wake of the firing — the bags are flimsier, prices are up, aisles are dirtier, they say. "The place just feels flat," customer Steph George, who usually shops at the Somersworth, New Hampshire, location, tells me. Some post tributes to their fired CEO: "Every day I wake up I wish the firing of Artie T was just a nightmare," one reads. Another describes a shrine to Artie T. that has formed in the women's bathroom at a Market Basket in New Hampshire, but this may be pure invention — a store manager denies that the shrine exists when I call them. Some customers have embarked on personal boycotts, but they haven't reached any sort of critical mass. Other shoppers say things haven't really changed much. Russell Hillman, who shops in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, conducted an informal price test and found that staples at Market Basket remained either cheaper or the same price as local competitors in the months following the firing. "I feel bad for Artie, but without any reason to switch, I still shop there," he says. Though he's no longer involved in day-to-day governance, Artie T. still holds 28% of Market Basket stock. He's announced that he doesn't plan to appeal the court ruling but maintains that he was wronged. On a recent trip back to Salem, Massachusetts, my hometown, I visited the local Market Basket, where my family shopped growing up. It's the week before the Fourth of July, a couple of months after Artie T.'s firing was upheld. It's the same spot where 12 years ago, workers were picketing with signs of Artie T.'s face, and shelves went bare in protest. Now, the lot is full of cars. Employees in green jackets are hard at work in 90-degree heat, maneuvering long chains of shopping carts. They wear name tags listing how long they've worked for the store — many have been there more than 10 years. On the air conditioned shop floor, a group of managers in burgundy jackets and ties, one with 37 years of service, discuss the best way to display a shelf of tortilla chips. The store is packed with customers, a cross-section of working-class New England — old and young, long-time locals and recent immigrants — their shopping carts piled high with groceries and supplies for summer barbecues. For now, at least, it's business as usual. Read the original article on Business Insider
AP Images As Artie T. Demoulas addressed a crowd of hundreds of workers on the lawn of the Market Basket headquarters, he sounded more like a left-wing union organizer than the centimillionaire CEO of a grocery empire. "No one person is better or more important than another," Demoulas said, dropping his Rs in a New England accent, his brow slick in the August heat. "Whether it's a full-timer or a part-timer, a sacker or a cashier, a grocery clerk or a truck driver or a warehouse selectman, a store manager, a supervisor, a customer, a vendor, or a CEO — we are all equal." The speech marked the culmination of a bizarre labor battle that had come to define the summer of 2014 in New England. Amid a long-standing feud with a rival branch of his family, led by his cousin Artie S. Demoulas, the Market Basket board of directors voted to oust Artie T. as CEO that June. Artie T., who had spent decades building the supermarket brand into a profitable New England powerhouse, did not go quietly. The CEO had built a fierce loyalty among Market Basket employees and customers. He had developed a reputation as a generous but unassuming executive who wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty on the shop floor. When he made store visits, he would often stop and carry bags for customers. He remembered clerks' and butchers' names and helped them with medical expenses. "He was a great guy who would always listen to you," says Dan Jarvis, a 20-year Market Basket veteran, who remembers Artie T. showing up at his grandmother's funeral. For many locals, he had come to represent a bygone era of corporate decency, when executives put the needs of their workers and customers before their shareholders' bank accounts. In the weeks after his firing, employees organized walkouts and picket lines at all 71 Market Basket franchises. Warehouse workers and teamsters stopped making deliveries, leaving shelves bare. Mostly non-union workers and managers were picketing, not for better wages or working conditions, but to bring back their boss. "I haven't seen anything like that in all the years I studied labor relations in the United States," says Thomas A. Kochan, a professor at MIT's Sloan School of Management, who wrote a case study on the standoff. Customers also began boycotting the chain. They wore "Artie T. Strong" T-shirts, bought posters depicting him in the style of the Barack Obama "Hope" image, and taped receipts from rival grocers to Market Basket store windows. The general feeling that summer was that Artie T. was for the people, while Artie S. was for the shareholders — an impression reinforced by the board's 2013 decision to distribute $300 million in a dividend to shareholders over Artie T.'s objections. It seemed highly likely that the new leadership would sell the chain. By late August, Market Basket had lost out on an estimated $750 million in revenue. On August 27, to stanch the bleeding, Artie S. and the board reached a deal to sell the majority of the company back to Artie T. and his three sisters for $1.6 billion, and reinstate him as CEO. The speech on the headquarters lawn in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, in front of a line of Market Basket-branded semi-trailers and workers holding signs emblazoned with Artie T.'s face, was his victory lap. He thanked the customers and workers for standing by him, and gave special thanks to his sisters, whose backing had made the deal possible. His triumph had launched him into the pantheon of New England folk heroes occupied by the likes of Big Papi and Tom Brady. But the victory was not as secure as it seemed. After the sale, Artie T. faced a mountain of debt, a succession crisis, and a fragile alliance with his sisters that would soon begin to fray, until it devolved into a bitter campaign of public mudslinging. A decade later, the CEO would be fighting for control of his company once again, not on the picket lines, but in a Delaware courtroom. For many New Englanders, Artie T. Demoulas had come to represent a bygone era of corporate decency.AP Images Business Insider dug through hundreds of pages of court documents to get the behind the scenes story of the battle for New England's grocery empire. Market Basket is a New England institution, now with 32,000 employees, 95 locations, and $8 billion in annual revenue. Working-class New Englanders are intensely loyal to the chain, where food is high-quality yet affordable, and the checkout counters are staffed not by robots but by relatively well-compensated associates in ties and jackets. A 2026 study by the consulting firm Strategic Resource Group found that commonly purchased groceries at Market Basket are substantially more affordable than comparable regional competitors like Wegmans, Stop & Shop, and Hannaford. It began in 1917 in the mill town of Lowell, Massachusetts, where Greek immigrants Athanasios and Efrosini Demoulas opened a grocery store to serve the working-class community in the city's Greek neighborhood. Back then, many customers paid on credit, and Athanasios often delivered groceries free of charge. The couple's sons, Telemachus and George, bought the business from their parents in 1954, and began a steady expansion, riding the wave of the "supermarket revolution" in the 1950s. At one point, Artie T. reportedly took a swing at Artie S. in the back of the courtroom. Artie T., Telemachus' son, grew up working various jobs throughout the family business — bagging produce, deboning chicken, and stocking shelves — before climbing the corporate ladder. He took over as president and CEO in 2008. As Market Basket grew, it also developed a reputation for acidic family drama. After George's death in 1971, a rift emerged between the two branches of Demoulas's that would define the company for decades, as George's branch began to feel as though they were being sidelined in the growing company. In 1990, George's branch, to which Artie S. belonged, sued Telemachus for allegedly defrauding them out of their shares of the company. Artie S. had also worked his way up the company, but pulled back from day-to-day affairs after the lawsuit. The suit culminated in a grinding four-month trial, in which, at one point, Artie T. reportedly took a swing at Artie S. in the back of the courtroom. Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Maria Lopez ultimately ruled in favor of George's branch, awarding them $206 million and 50.5% of the company. The feud kept getting stranger. In 1990, six surveillance bugs were found in the Market Basket headquarters, and Artie T.'s faction accused Artie S.'s of wiretapping their office in order to coordinate legal strategy. (Artie S. was later cleared of wiretapping allegations.) In 1997, lawyers from Artie T's faction concocted an elaborate scheme that could have been a plotline in "Better Call Saul": Their lawyers arranged a series of fake job interviews with one of Lopez's court clerks, and recorded them in an attempt to dig up dirt on the judge. Two lawyers were disbarred when this came to light. The family turmoil culminated in Artie T.'s 2014 firing and summer of labor action. Though the mood at Market Basket after the summer of 2014 was exuberant, the company had limped out of the fight bruised and bloodied. To buy out his cousins' side of the business, Artie T. and his sisters had taken out a loan for $1.6 billion. It was the first time in the Market Basket's history that they had taken on debt. "We knew we had to run the ship tight for a couple years," says Stephen Hilton, who was working in the butcher department at the Fitchburg location at the time. "Everybody was a little more nervous." Some employees saw their hours cut. After Massachusetts passed a bill removing the requirement that employers pay time and a half on Sundays, Market Basket cut workers' Sunday pay. As Hilton saw it, these conditions slowly eroded some employees' loyalty to their CEO. "Everyone was disappointed they couldn't maintain everything over time," he says. And as old-timers retired, they were replaced by new employees who didn't have the same memories of the uprising. To make things worse for Artie T., he was steadily losing his board. After the strike, the new board had been packed with loyalists; Artie T. later said he could not "think of anything" his board "voted against that [he] wanted to do." Over the ensuing decade, a more adversarial board began to take its place. "The best succession plan is no succession plan," Caren Demoulas Pasquale recounted Artie T. saying, slamming his hand down on the desk. While Artie T. was the largest individual shareholder, with 28% of the company, his three sisters Caren, Glorianne, and Frances, together held about 60% following the 2014 sale. This wouldn't have been a problem if they were getting along, but they had been steadily drifting apart. Court documents show that the family relationship was strained by 2019. The exact reasons for the fallout remain opaque, but one contributing factor appears to be a breakdown in communication. "Please Artie, as our leader you must try to foster more open communication between the four of us," Glorianne Demoulas Farnham wrote in a 2019 letter to her younger brother. Otherwise, she went on, "I am pessimistic about how things will proceed moving forward between the family." And there was the issue of succession. Frances Demoulas Kettenbach, the eldest sibling, hoped that her son, Mike Kettenbach, then working as a deli supervisor, might be next in line for the throne. Caren Demoulas Pasquale, the youngest sister, also hoped that her sons could gain a better foothold in the company. Caren hoped to discuss the company's succession plan at one board meeting, but Artie T. quickly shut down the conversation. "The best succession plan is no succession plan," she recounted him saying in court testimony, slamming his hand down on the desk. Each time a member of the board retired, they were replaced by a new member supported by the coalition of sisters. By 2023, the board was composed of a 3-2 majority of directors backed by the sisters and opposed by Artie T. He had refused to give out his cell phone to some of them, and rarely interacted with them outside of board meetings."My brother was always threatened with any board member that he didn't put on himself," Caren said in court. The new board was growing tired of what they described as Artie T.'s "autocratic" management style. It was hard to pry information from him — they felt that they didn't have a clear picture of the annual budget or capital expenditure plans. Artie T. also didn't bring other executives to meetings, leaving the board feeling isolated. Both Artie T. and the Market Basket board declined to comment for this article, through their respective PR teams. Still, the company remained profitable, adding more than 20 locations in the decade after the boycott. By 2024, they had finally paid off their debt from the 2014 sale. It was that summer that the new board decided to make a move to rein in their CEO. Jay Hachigian, a founding partner of the law firm Gunderson Dettmer, had joined the board in 2021, making him a relative newcomer at a company where employees often stay for decades. He was neighbors with Caren in the wealthy suburb of Weston, Massachusetts, and his wife had been friends with her since high school. Artie T. and Hachigian quickly began to butt heads. In a 2023 email to Hachigian and fellow new board member and private equity investor Steven Collins, Artie T. accused the pair of "disregard for the fundamental business philosophies" of Market Basket, and claimed that they would "erode and eventually destroy" the company. He copied all the Market Basket shareholders on the thread. In the summer of 2024, Hachigian drafted a list of demands that he hoped would bring Artie T. back under board control. "This was a serious thing," Hachigian later said in court testimony. "Boards don't pass resolutions like this and give them to CEOs. This, in my entire career, has never happened." On August 22, the board voted 3-2 to present Hachigian's resolutions to Artie T. How does a business run for the next 50 years with an autocrat making all the decisions?Market Basket board member Michael Keyes The list requested that Artie T. provide the board with more information on budgets and capital expenditure projects, bring other executives to board meetings, and not celebrate the anniversary of the 2014 walkout. This point was important. The document insisted that the company not produce any content that "in any way recognizes, celebrates or thanks customers, employees, or others" in connection to the walkout. It also insisted that leadership of the company would not pass to Artie T.'s children Madeline and T.A. Demoulas, both of whom were Market Basket executives. Artie T. looked at the list and asked to step out of the room to review it further. When he returned about 20 minutes later, he was angry and agitated, Hachigian remembers. They talked through the list for about an hour. The succession item was a primary point of contention, but what especially bothered Artie T. was the bit about the walkout. "I've never known a retailer, ever, in my life… not wanting to acknowledge or thank the customers or the associates," he later said at trial. "And when something is good for the company, why would one not want it to take place?" Hachigian didn't think the boycott had been good for the company. After all, it had brought them to the brink of bankruptcy. "If it happened once," he said, at trial, "it could happen again." Despite the board's urging, Artie T. commemorated the 2014 strike shortly after, paying out a $15 million bonus to employees in recognition of the anniversary, without board approval. Hachigian saw the move as an attempt to ensure the workers' loyalty. In January 2025, the board further consolidated power by ousting the Artie T.-friendly Terry Carleton. And in March, they replaced Bill Shea, the one remaining Artie T. loyalist, with Hachigian as board chairman. At that meeting, Artie T. accused Hachigian, Collins, and new board member Michael Keyes of "destroying the company" and called them "incompetent," "classless," and "walk-ons" before storming out, several board members recall. He was not invited to the next board meeting. That spring, two executives, including Frances's son Michael Kettenbach, informed the board that another walkout in support of Artie T. might be in the works. In April, recently retired executive Tom Trainor told Hachigian he thought a boycott would be unlikely to succeed this time. In his opinion, morale was low, and Artie T.'s lieutenants weren't broadly liked. "It's totally different than '14," he said at trial. The board decided that it was time to go for the kill. On May 28, Artie T. was on the phone with his produce director at the company headquarters when Joe Schmidt, a 39-year employee of Market Basket, came into his office. There were security guards in the parking lot, Schmidt told him. Artie T. saw them out the window. Then he saw Hachigian and Collins approaching. Artie T. and his daughter Madeline met Collins and Hachigian at his office door. Hachigian remembers Artie T. being irritated that they were not wearing ties. Collins handed him a letter of suspension that an executive committee of the anti-Artie faction board members had voted on the day before. "Things aren't really working out," Collins told him. "The company is running fantastic," Artie T. said. "What are you doing here?" He reviewed the letter and saw there was an item about him orchestrating a new work stoppage. "What in the world is this?" he said. With help from his children, Artie T. packed up his office and piled boxes into a truck outside while Hachigian and Collins watched from the window. A press junket formed outside the headquarters. "How does a business run for the next 50 years with an autocrat making all the decisions?" board member Keyes asked the assembled media. Then the purge began. The board suspended anyone who seemed like they might back a major work stoppage. Schmidt was fired, as were other long-time executives, and Artie T's children. Anyone perceived as too loyal to the old guard got the ax. Two months later, security cameras at the Somerville Market Basket picked up Schmidt and fellow Artie T. lieutenant Tom Gordon entering the store, wearing full suits in the 90-degree heat. Schmidt gave the camera a wave and a tight-lipped smile. Market Basket has 32,000 employees, 95 locations, and $8 billion in annual revenue.MediaNews Group/ Getty Images The pair had secretly held on to their master keys after they were fired, and had been making their way through some 30 Market Baskets across the state. That summer, they also began communicating with Artie T. via burner phones, court records showed. The board caught wind, and filed for an injunction against the two men. On August 14, a judge forbade Schmidt and Gordon from stepping foot on any Market Basket property. Meanwhile, both sides hired PR firms and mounted press campaigns to make their case to the public. Cartoons mocking the sisters and board members began popping up on pro-Artie T. Market Basket social media pages. One AI-generated cartoon shows the three sisters lounging on a beach, above the caption "Non-working Market Basket Shareholders." "It's not fair that I only get $40 million a year," cartoon Frances says. "Can we scrap the bonus plan?" The board, in press releases and media statements, framed the conflict as an internal family dispute, and insisted that nothing would fundamentally change in the wake of the firing. "In 2014, the board was taken by surprise and only had a very ineffective public relations response," says Kochan, the MIT professor. "This time, they were on the offense." In July, the CEO of the Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe, calling for another boycott in support of the ousted CEO. Hachigian responded to D'Alessandro with a harsh letter that found its way into the press. The proposed boycott never materialized, even after Artie T. was officially fired that September. To Kochan, while the 2014 firing felt like an existential, company-altering decision, this firing felt more like a family feud. "I don't think it was significant enough for anyone to put their jobs or other interests at risk," he says. The matter would be decided in the courts. In February 2026, Artie T. was in surprisingly good spirits, considering that he was fighting for his job in Delaware Chancery Court. In a loose-fitting black suit and a maroon tie, the same one worn by Market Basket store directors, he greeted his legal team with an easy smile and made small talk about the US National Team's recent hockey match. Keyes and Hachigian sat on the opposite side of the courtroom — not looking at their former CEO. His sisters weren't present, and Artie T. acknowledged during the trial that they haven't spoken in years. Artie T. monitored the arguments intently, his fingertips steepled, his mouth sometimes tightening into a slight grimace. It was the final day of a bitter trial, in which both sides attacked the fundamental integrity of the other. It was an unusual case; firing a CEO whose company is performing well financially is rare. Artie T.'s lawyers argued that the firing was in bad faith, serving the interests of the sisters instead of the company. The board's lawyers said that the move was justified to prevent a boycott and protect the long-term financial health of the chain. A month later, the ruling came down. The firing was upheld. In 2014, Artie's firing felt like a threat to Market Basket's very existence. This time, it's a little less clear what will happen to the ethos of the brand. The board installed Don Mulligan, the longtime chief financial officer, as acting CEO, and later promoted Chuck Casassa, another Market Basket old-timer, to the role, a move that Kochan sees as "dampening employees' fears." (Frances and Caren's children were also elevated after Artie's firing.) Board members have insisted there are no plans to sell. Combing through the Market Basket social media pages, you can find plenty of customers who have noticed small changes in the wake of the firing — the bags are flimsier, prices are up, aisles are dirtier, they say. "The place just feels flat," customer Steph George, who usually shops at the Somersworth, New Hampshire, location, tells me. Some post tributes to their fired CEO: "Every day I wake up I wish the firing of Artie T was just a nightmare," one reads. Another describes a shrine to Artie T. that has formed in the women's bathroom at a Market Basket in New Hampshire, but this may be pure invention — a store manager denies that the shrine exists when I call them. Some customers have embarked on personal boycotts, but they haven't reached any sort of critical mass. Other shoppers say things haven't really changed much. Russell Hillman, who shops in South Attleboro, Massachusetts, conducted an informal price test and found that staples at Market Basket remained either cheaper or the same price as local competitors in the months following the firing. "I feel bad for Artie, but without any reason to switch, I still shop there," he says. Though he's no longer involved in day-to-day governance, Artie T. still holds 28% of Market Basket stock. He's announced that he doesn't plan to appeal the court ruling but maintains that he was wronged. On a recent trip back to Salem, Massachusetts, my hometown, I visited the local Market Basket, where my family shopped growing up. It's the week before the Fourth of July, a couple of months after Artie T.'s firing was upheld. It's the same spot where 12 years ago, workers were picketing with signs of Artie T.'s face, and shelves went bare in protest. Now, the lot is full of cars. Employees in green jackets are hard at work in 90-degree heat, maneuvering long chains of shopping carts. They wear name tags listing how long they've worked for the store — many have been there more than 10 years. On the air conditioned shop floor, a group of managers in burgundy jackets and ties, one with 37 years of service, discuss the best way to display a shelf of tortilla chips. The store is packed with customers, a cross-section of working-class New England — old and young, long-time locals and recent immigrants — their shopping carts piled high with groceries and supplies for summer barbecues. For now, at least, it's business as usual. Read the original article on Business Insider
