How a succession battle over a beloved New England supermarket empire turned ugly

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.