METHUEN — Fallout continues in the Market Basket saga, with the two sides of the battle responding to a plea from a local government official to settle the matter.
A letter from Methuen Mayor D.J. Beauregard, backing embattled Market Basket CEO Arthur T. Demoulas and urging an end to the boardroom drama, has the board chairman and the supermarket’s new operations director, a Methuen resident, promising that the store will continue to offer customers value and employees opportunity.
On Thursday, Beauregard published an open letter to the Market Basket Board of Directors, two months after the company suspended the CEO, also known as Artie T., and a team of executives who support him. The board claimed Artie T. and his supporters were concocting some form of work stoppage, which they deny.
The mayor’s letter was written two days after two longtime executives, Tom Gordon, director of groceries, and Joe Schmidt, director of operations, were fired for insubordination.
Beauregard’s letter strenuously defended Artie T., while urging the company to keep its customers in mind.
The infighting needs to stop, he said, in a time of inflation and food insecurity, for the benefit of Methuen’s residents who shop and work at the city’s two Market Baskets.
“My city’s residents rely on those stores to feed their families,” Beauregard says. “Many rely on those jobs to pay their bills. And what they see right now is a company drifting dangerously off course.”
Board Chairman Jay Hachigian responded to Beauregard in a letter on Friday that thanked the mayor for his thoughts and offered reassurance.
“Let us assure you that there will be no changes in our Market Basket stores in Methuen or elsewhere,” Hachigian writes. “Market Basket will continue to provide the same great groceries at the lowest prices and live up to its culture and motto, ‘More For Your Dollar’.”
In a separate letter to the mayor, Market Basket’s new director of grocery operations, Kevin Feole, said the company has remained committed to its customers since late May (when Artie T., his children and other executives were suspended).
“We serve about 45,000 customers at our two Methuen stores, which proudly employ over 500 associates in total,” Feole said in the letter. “Since late May 2025, sales in both of our Methuen stores have measurably increased, while customer count is also up.”
Feole told Beauregard that he is a lifelong Methuen resident and started with the company 50 years ago as a bagger at the Haverhill Street Market Basket in Methuen.
“I can assure you that we are all committed to continuing to serve our valued Methuen customers with the same culture, low prices, and dedication that our community has come to expect and deserve,” Feole says.
The former grocery director, Gordon, who had 50 years with the company before he was fired, was originally from Methuen and early on worked at the Market Basket near The Loop.
The letter from the board’s director, other than expressing respect for the mayor’s position, did not address the mayor’s plea to the board to bring back Artie T.
The mayor urges the board to take this action in his letter.
“So on behalf of the city of Methuen, I’m calling on the Market Basket board to do the right thing: resolve this internal dispute and bring back Arthur T. Demoulas – before the damage becomes irreversible,” Beauregard wrote.
The board has hired the law firm Quinn Emanuel to investigate whether Arthur T. Demoulas had worked with others to organize a work stoppage.
Also suspended were Artie T.’s two children, Telemachus and Madeline.
Since then, the company has suspended several longtime employees including district supervisor Paul Quigley, a Haverhill native, who has 44 years with the company.
In a press conference in Reading on Wednesday, Schmidt and Gordon said their firings were part of a scripted dismantling of the company that ultimately targets Artie T. and which is driven by his three sisters, who are 60% majority owners of the company.
Arthur T. Demoulas owns 28% of the company. The rest remains in a trust for family members.
Artie T.’s spokesperson, Justine Griffin, thanked Mayor Beauregard for his support and recognition of Market Basket’s culture and importance in people’s lives.
“It’s a sad state of affairs when he has to explain it to our own Board of Directors, who clearly don’t understand it, or perhaps worse – understand it but don’t value it as the mayor does,” the statement read.
The board says that Arthur T. Demoulas has denied them basic financial oversight they require to perform their duties.
In 2014, the region, including customers and Market Basket employees, rallied behind Artie T., who was fired by the board during another family fight eventually settled when Artie T.’s side of the family bought out the interests of cousin Arthur S. Demoulas.
Political leaders in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire had urged the two sides to settle their differences.
Today, Market Basket employs some 35,000 people and operates 90 stores in New England, earning almost $8 billion a year.