TOUR: Kam Man Foods - Edison, NJ

Kam Man Foods

Owner: Wellman Wu

Opened: 1996

Cooperative: none

Location: 511 Old Post Rd, Edison, NJ

Photographed: January and July 2020

Our tour today is the 29,000 square foot Kam Man Foods, a Chinese grocery store, just off US-1 in Edison. The interior is much nicer than the East Hanover location we've toured previously. That's likely due to the fact that there's a lot more competition in Edison for Asian markets than East Hanover, which is maybe 45 minutes to the north. In addition to the Lotte Plaza that took over the Superfresh, there's a large Hmart and 99 Ranch Market. Both of these will be coming soon to the blog! Meanwhile, there are no other significant eastern Asian supermarkets near East Hanover. The above exterior photo is from my January 2020 visit, with the remaining pictures from the visit of July of the same year.

The layout is much like if the East Hanover location were rotated 90 degrees. Bakery and prepared foods are along the front wall, with refrigerator cases lining the right side wall. Meat and seafood line the back wall, with produce in the back left corner and registers lining the left side wall of the store. Aisles run parallel to the front of the store.

Ah yes, much nicer than East Hanover!

Bakery up towards the front near the entrance. The exit is just out of frame to the right.

Nonfoods and housewares in the front corner here. It's a little cramped, so I couldn't get a very good picture, unfortunately.

And here we're looking down the right side wall of the store to the back wall.

The store feels much cleaner and better organized than East Hanover for sure.

Kam Man is more specifically Chinese than some of the other Asian stores around here. Lotte Plaza, for instance, is primarily Korean but also has other Asian selections. H Mart is largely the same but has a larger selection of mainstream grocery items (but has a space more than double the size of this one).

Some frozen foods here in the second-to-last aisle, with bulk foods taking up the other half. The rest of the frozen foods are in coffin cases in the last aisle...

Despite the fact that this store was nicer than East Hanover, it still seems to be a less-preferred Chinese store. We'll soon get to 99 Ranch Market, a Chinese/Taiwanese supermarket which was far more crowded than this one.

Service seafood and butcher on the back wall of the store. Once again, this is much nicer and more importantly, much cleaner than East Hanover.

Pretty simple decor on the walls, but it still looks nice.

Produce in the back corner on the left-side wall. I do find it rather odd that Kam Man seems to put their produce at the end of the store instead of the front.

And here's a look across the front-end, which again actually runs along the side wall of the store, and a few of the outside vendors along the wall. You can also see the bakery-prepared foods area to the far left. Looking good if a little cluttered! That wraps up our look at this store, and up next we'll head just to the south on Route 1 for a wonderfully retro store.