H Mart is a Korean-American supermarket chain operated by the Hanahreum Group headquartered in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. The chain, with locations throughout the United States and Canada, as well as 2 locations in London, specializes in providing Asian foods. The chain also operates several Super H Mart stores in the United States. H Mart is the largest Asian American grocery store chain, with 61 locations nationwide. The "H" in "H Mart" stands for Han Ah Reum, a Korean phrase meaning "one arm full of groceries". This phrase translates more literally to "spreading both arms to cover" or "armful".
History
The chain began in 1982 in Woodside, Queens, New York City, as a small corner grocery store. The store still exists, but does not operate the same way as other H Marts do and keeps the original Han Ah Reum name. On October 19, 1998, the chain's current headquarters in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, opened.
Growth
United States
After the tenth anniversary of opening its first store in 1982, the company began a rapid expansion by adding 10 additional stores in as many years. While mainly concentrated to the Northeast, in 1997 the company opened its first store in Falls Church, Virginia. By 2005 the chain had 17 stores and by March 2006, the company had 22 locations. With the exception of two stores in Denver, Colorado, all of the locations were on the East Coast. The company scheduled the opening of its first West Coast location in Federal Way, Washington, in April 2006. After its 2001 opening, an H Mart location in Northern Virginia gained many Hispanic American employees. After cultural conflicts between Hispanic and Korean American employees in one store, the H Mart headquarters provided an intercultural training course, with translations in Spanish. In Spring 2017, H Mart opened a 43,000-square-foot store in San Jose, California. As of 2018 there were 66 H Mart locations in the United States, in California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas. In Summer 2018, H Mart signed a lease for a 42,000-square-foot store in San Francisco, As of July 2019, H Mart operated 66 grocery stores across 12 states in the US.
H Mart began moving into Western Canada starting in December 2003 with their first store in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The original and the next three were a first for the Vancouver suburbs as the company opened their first western North American stores in Canada as opposed to the United States first. Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco weren't scheduled to open until months later and the next year, respectively. In subsequent years, following the success of their first Canadian store, the company opened three additional locations in Downtown Vancouver and Langley in 2006 and Richmond in 2012 and Port Coquitlam in 2016. In 2013, the company opened its first urban convenience format on Yonge Street and Churchill Avenue the in Toronto-suburb of Willowdale called "M2M–morning to midnight". The two-story, store is the first one in Canada. There are currently two other M2M stores in Manhattan. A larger H Mart opened on Yonge Street in Richmond Hill, with another opening in Downtown Toronto across from Ryerson University in 2017. In July 2019 they opened a store in Edmonton, Alberta.
United Kingdom
H Mart Europe Limited was incorporated in 2009 and in 2011 H Mart opened its first store in Europe, in New Malden, London.
Controversy
In 2012, outside the Flushing, New York, location, pop-up picket lines appeared to protest H Mart's hiring practices. Jim MacDonald, the protest organizer, and two friends, said that a nearby Waldbaum's closing is the reason for their discontent of the company's hiring practices which are mainly of Asians or Koreans. The trio said that several other nearby stores all have disproportionate levels of employees meaning that there were almost no white or black people in any of the stores they visited. In a statement by H Mart the company, "does not screen employees by race, but by their capabilities. The reason Korean employees dominate the chain's Flushing stores, he said, is so they can cater to an incredibly large population of residents who do not speak English." In 2006, a civil suit was filed against H Mart for discrimination against whites when three tenants of the West Willow Shopping Mall that the company had moved into and then bought in Willowbrook, Canada. The three complainants, Rose Farrell of Colour Tech Hair Studio, John Pook of Peter F. Pook Insurance, and Lynn Wallace of Frames West Gallery filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal alleging that the company wanted to turn it into an Asian-only market. All three made the claim when their leases were not renewed despite being long-term lease holders within the mall. In late 2007, tribunal member Lindsay Lyster dismissed their complaint on the grounds it had no reasonable prospect of success and did not merit a hearing. She found the complainants' evidence in support of their claim was not strong and the respondents disputed what they did have. Lyster wrote:
In the end, I have concluded that the complainants' case is based on little more than conjecture based on what they read inthe media and H-Mart's reputation as a "Korean market," as seen through the lens of their own unhappiness in being unable to maintain their businesses in the mall.
