Semi-Converted

For nearly a decade, the bitterest holdout against the rush to retail trading stamps was the nation's biggest grocery chain, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. Only last March did A. & P. reluctantly get into the game with Plaid stamps. Last week, at the company's annual meeting, President Ralph W. Burger, who two years ago condemned the stamps as a "drag on civilization," conceded that they may be good for business.

With the stamp plan now in operation in half its 4,409 stores, A. & P. is currently ringing up its biggest sales ever; in the three months ending May 26, said Burger, the chain's gross climbed 4 1/2% above any other quarter in its history. But Burger still had some lingering reservations about stamps. So far, he reported, the surge in sales has not produced any increase in profits--though A. & P. expects profits to "catch up" once the heavy costs of installing the stamp plan are past. And when a stockholder asked whether recent price increases in A. & P. stores were caused by higher commodity prices or the cost of the stamps. Burger's reply was candid and joyless. "Both," he snapped.

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