Washington Post: Ethnic Grocers Losing Their Niche
Shozo Michise stacks boxes of soy sauces and dried noodles on a stairwell as he empties two of the three floors of his Japanese grocery store in McLean. The shuttered top and bottom floors are vestiges of a time when embassy officials, expatriate businessmen and their families crowded the market to buy Japanese food, rent movies from Tokyo and exchange news that kept the community connected with itself and with its homeland. Today, Naniwa Food is a much smaller operation...The decline is...a reflection of the competition the store faces from fast-growing ethnic food giants like H Mart, Grand Mart and mainstream grocers that are offering broader selections of ethnic foods, often cheaper..."We mainly target Asians like Koreans, Japanese and Chinese, but we also want to expand to Hispanics, Indians and other Americans who haven't yet tried Asian foods," said Hyun Hwa Gil, who works in the marketing department of a local chain of Lotte Plaza supermarkets...For now, small markets depend on their ability to sell hard-to-find items. At Naniwa, it is the shishito mini green peppers and tamago tofu egg custard that attract customers...Yoshi Iue was shopping one morning with her two young daughters to buy ingredients to make mochi ice cream..."We come to buy food but also to talk to the owner," she said. "It's nice to be able to speak Japanese here"...more...
