In the last few years, one of the most significant shifts in the American grocery store retail scene has been the rise of ‘ethnic’ or multicultural grocery stores. The ethnic food market, as defined by market research firm CE Intelligence, comprises four segments including Mexican/Hispanic foods, Asian foods, Indian foods and other foods (Canjun/Creole, Caribbean, Middle Eastern/Mediterranean, Hawaiian and Eastern European). Thanks to factors like growing immigrant communities and the increasingly adventurous palate of American consumers, the market for multicultural food products, and the retailers specialising in these items, such as H Mart and Patel Brothers, have seen rapid growth in recent years. Data collected by IBISWorld, an online business intelligence platform that provides industry research and analysis for businesses of all sizes, confirmed that ethnic supermarkets’ revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of 3 per cent over the past five years to reach an estimated US$57.6 billion in 2024.To put this in perspective, a report from CE Intelligence found that this market generated just US$2.5 billion in revenue in 2010. The rise of culture-specific grocery storesStarting as small mom-and-pop shops in immigrant-heavy neighborhoods in the US, multicultural retailers like H Mart, Patel Brothers and 99 Ranch have become formidable players in the broader grocery landscape in recent years. 99 Ranch, which specialises in foods from China and Taiwan especially, opened four new branches in 2023 alone, bringing its reach to 62 stores in 11 states. Patel Brothers, which specialises in South Asian food items, has 52 locations spread across 20 states and has plans to open six more stores in the next two years. However, in the landscape of culture-specific grocery stores, few players have had as strong of a cultural or financial impact as H Mart.The first location of this US-based grocery store chain specialising in Asian products opened in 1982 with a small base in Queens, New York. Today, H Mart — a reference to the store’s original name, Han Ah Reum, which translates to “an armful” in Korean — has opened more than a mere “armful” of locations across the US.This year, H Mart is estimated to be worth US$2 billion with 96 stores and there is even a best-selling memoir, “Crying in H Mart”, by the musician Michelle Zauner, named after it. In May, H Mart opened New York’s largest food-hall-grocery-store in Long Island City and it is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. In the same month, the chain purchased an entire shopping centre in San Francisco for US$37 million with plans to open a new space in the next few years. Brian Kwon, the president of H Mart, and Swetal Patel, a partner at Patel Brothers, have both cited a more diverse consumer base as a significant growth driver.  Kwon noted that 30 per cent of H Mart’s audience is made up of non-Asian consumers, whereas Patel confirmed that 20 to 25 per cent of the chain’s audience is made up of non-South Asian clientele. But as much headway as ethnic grocery stores have made in recent years, they still represent a tiny share of the overall grocery market. Asian American grocers currently represent less than 1 per cent of the total US grocery business. But their influence can be seen in the products that more mainstream retailers, like Whole Foods or Target, are starting to carry. How retailers can tap into the rising interest in multicultural products While retailers like H Mart and 99 Ranch have a better cultural understanding and access to culturally specific snacks and spices, big-box retailers like Walmart and Target have also been eagerly tapping into this growing consumer base.For example, Target is rolling out Vietnamese-American beverage brand Copper Cow Coffee in 469 locations nationwide this month after a successful test run of 55 Target stores in California. This lines up well with the growing consumer interest in Vietnamese-style coffee. According to Google Trends, this beverage category has been seeing significant growth, with searches for “Vietnamese coffee” and “Vietnamese coffee maker” rising 61 per cent and 30 per cent year-over-year respectively. Target is not the only retailer partnering with indie brand founders, such as Copper Cow Coffee’s Debbie Wei Mullin or Fly By Jing’s Jing Gao, to provide access to the culturally diverse food products that consumers are seeking out. Gao has been especially proud of the work that she and her fellow brand founders have been doing to introduce consumers to a richer, more authentic version of the once-isolated ‘ethnic’ aisle traditionally found within mainstream grocery stores. “Since [launching in] 2018, I think the thing we really accomplished is helping revolutionize the ethnic aisle in grocery stores and being a leader in this movement of bringing high-quality ethnic foods to more and more Americans,” Gao stated.