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H Mart (H 마트 or 한아름 마트; ) is an American supermarket chain operated by the Hanahreum Group headquartered in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. The chain, with locations throughout the United States, Canada, and London, specializes in providing Asian foods. The chain also operates several Super H Mart stores.

The "H" in "H Mart" stands for Han Ah Reum, a Korean phrase meaning "one arm full of groceries".

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 which translates from Korean into arm full of groceries. The chain started expanding opening multiple stores expanding across the north east. In 1992 the chain opened its first store out side of the state of New York. In 1997 they opened their first store in the state of Virginia. The very next year they opened a store in Pennsylvania. from 2001 to 2009 the chain grew opening stores in the states of Maryland, Georgia, Illinois, Texas, and California. On October 19, 1998, the chain's current headquarters in Lyndhurst, New Jersey, opened. Now the company has expanded into Canada and the UK

United States


The chain opened its first store in woodside New York. Two years later in 1984 after the success of the first store decided to open another in Union, New York. Just four Years in 1992 following the 10-year anniversary, the company began a rapid expansion by adding 10 additional stores in just as many years. Later the chain expanded out of state to Englewood, New Jersey in 1992. Drifting away from the north east, the company opened a store in 1997 Falls Church, Virginia. By 2005 the chain had 17 stores in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. By March 2006, the company had 22 locations expanding to Illinois. With the exception of two stores in Denver, Colorado, all of the locations were located on the East Coast. The company decided to expand to the other side of the country expanding to the West Coast creating a store in Federal Way, Washington, in April 2006.

As of 2018, there are well over 50 H Mart locations across the United States. In the United states, California houses 7 locations, Georgia housing 5, Illinois holding 4, Maryland having 6, Massachusetts has 2, only 1 resides in Michigan, New Jersey contains 8, the headquarters of New York holds 10 stores, North Carolina with 1, Pennsylvania has 3, Virginia houses 6, and finally Texas has 5 stores.

The latest store H Mart has opened in in Austin, Texas.

A little bit after the 2001 opening of an H Mart store located in Northern Virginia gained many new employees from Hispanic American backgrounds. Soon, cultural conflicts between Hispanic and Korean American employees in one of the store arose to a troublesome point, the H Mart headquarters decided to provided an intercultural training course, with translations in Spanish. The course calmed down the controversy with Hispanic and Korean American employees.

Canada
H Mart, by the early 2000's was an already well established grocery store chain. The company had already spread across the United States when they began pushing northward. In December 2003, H Mart began moving into Western Canada with their first store in Coquitlam, British Columbia. The first store wasn't enough for the chain, deciding to open three new stores in the Vancouver suburbs. These stores were a first for Canada as there have never been stores like this before. 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, respectfully. 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, 4500 sqft store is the first one in Canada. There are currently two other M2M stores in Manhattan.

Europe
H Mart Europe Limited was incorporated in 2009 and in 2011 H Mart opened its first store in Europe, in New Malden, London. They then opened a miniature H Mart store in 2015 on Tottenham Court Road. The store not only offers food but a variety of products. The mini store offers containers, cooking equipment, beauty supplies for women, and kitchen and bath supplies to name a few. One thing unique to the store is their offer of entertainment. The store offers K-pop, which is the musical entertainment for South Korea. K-pop makes lengthy entertaining music videos instilling trends and fashion into the minds of Korean teens.

Controversy
In 2012, outside the Flushing, New York, location, pop-up picket lines appeared to protest H Mart's hiring practices. According to 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 blacks in any of the stores they visited. Other protestors stated that their town is a diverse community and that the store should reflect that in their hiring practices. The asian supermarket chain was criticized for having and mainly asian work force. In a statement by H Mart stated that 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." Most customers shopping at the H mart stores are people of asian decent, having an asian workforce would more preferable to cater to the asian shoppers.

In 2006, a civil suit was filed against the H Mart chain for discrimination against whites. Three fellow tenants of the West Willow Shopping Mall filled the suit against the H mart brand which had recently opened a store in Willowbrook, Canada. The three complainants were made by Rose Farrell who owned Colour Tech Hair Studio, John Pook owner Peter F. Pook Insurance, and finnaly Lynn Wallace of Frames West Gallery. The three business owners filed a complaint with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal which stated that the the H mart store wanted to turn their recently opened establishment into an Asian-only supermarket. All three of the entrepreneurs made the claim when the owner of the mall decided that their leases weren't going to be renewed despite they were long-term lease holders within the mall. In later months of 2007, tribunal member Lindsay Lyster dismissed their complaint with the reason that the complaint itself had no reasonable prospect of success. Also the complaint 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 in the 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.