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A&P, however, began to decline in the 1950s, closing stores and leaving some mass U.S. markets in the process. In 1979, the company licensed its branding division, Compass Foods, Inc., to sell Eight O'Clock Coffee to other retailers including competing supermarket chains; among them is [[Pathmark]], a supermarket that broke away from the [[ShopRite (United States)|ShopRite]] retailers' cooperative in 1960s, which A&P acquired in 2007.
In 2003, A&P spun off the Eight O'Clock Coffee brand to [[Gryphon Investors]], a private equity firm based in [[San Francisco]], [[California]], which used the brand to create the Eight O'Clock Coffee Company. A few weeks later, Eight O'Clock's ground coffee line was introduced. Gryphon Investors would soon turn around and sell Eight O'Clock Coffee Company to Tata Global Beverages in 2006.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2006-06-26/news-by-company/27423821_1_tata-coffee-mh-ashraff-gryphon-investors |title=Tatas buy Eight O'Clock Coffee |publisher=economictimes.com |date=2006-06-26 |accessdate=2012-07-26}}</ref>
In 2009, [[Consumer Reports]] rated Eight O'Clock Coffee's 100 percent [[Coffee production in Colombia|Colombian]] brew as the "best buy" for ground brews, beating well-known brands, such as [[Folgers]], [[Maxwell House]] and [[Starbucks]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/02/02/coffee-consumers-price-idUSN0247557920090202 |title=Eight O'Clock coffee "best buy" -Consumer Reports |publisher=Reuters.com |date= 2009-02-02|accessdate=2011-10-24 |first=Marcy |last=Nicholson}}</ref>
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