need someone in the organization who knows the market, who knows the customer, [but there was] nobody left," a former executive told the Detroit Free Press. While A&P panned local management for accounting irregularities that affected the company, former executives blamed the breadth of the layoffs on the company's desire to cut costs. Market Scope projected that Farmer Jack led metro Detroit in market share with 27.5% at year end 2001. It began a free fall in 2002; by the end of the year, Kroger led the market while Meijer climbed to 16.1% from 10.1% in just one year. In 2003, Farmer Jack announced its first round of store closures and that it would seek voluntary buyouts among its most senior employees. In June, in a move made by the company to ‘get its consumer base back,’ but attributed by the media as a marketing gimmick, each store was closed for 37 hours so that they could be thoroughly cleaned; when the stores reopened, employees debuted with new uniforms and the loyalty card and weekly sales were discontinued in favor of everyday low pricing. Additionally, a new marketing program titled "We’re Thinking Fresh" promoting ‘it’s fresh or it’s free - guaranteed’ was launched. An analysis by the Detroit Free Press among a basket of commonly purchased items concluded that Farmer Jack's price had indeed went from most expensive to least expensive among its peers; however, the paper also noted that "in spite of the surface shine, some areas of the store (where the paper shopped) needed a scrubbing. The coolers looked old, a frozen food area had bent and crooked shelves, and some inner cooler door frames were dusty and dotted with bits of paper." The paper speculated that competitors would match Farmer Jack's prices and it would suffer from the same problems it had before the makeover. In early 2004, ten Farmer Jack locations were converted into A&P's Food Basics format in an attempt to compete with discount chains such as Save-A-Lot. Less than a year later, nine were closed while the other—a new-build store in Dearborn Heights—was converted into a Farmer Jack. Simultaneously, the closure of 15 Farmer Jacks was announced; four more closures were announced later in the year. In early 2005, A&P placed Farmer Jack for sale, seeking an estimated $250M for 71 core stores; the remaining locations were offered individually. Later that year, workers approved