From Asia to Albert Lea: Man notices Asian population without a store to buy products

Published 10:48 am Monday, April 14, 2014

Sei Ko stands Friday at the end of one of the aisles in his grocery store, which opened for business March 1. – Tim Engstrom/Albert Lea Tribune

There is a new grocery store in Albert Lea. This time, it sells food from the other side of the planet.

The Yaw Asian Grocery Store opened March 1 at 918 S. Broadway. Its owner, Sei Ko — pronounced like Seiko watches — moved to Albert Lea from Marshalltown, Iowa.

Sei Ko provides change and a receipt to a couple who came to purchase food at Yaw Asian Grocery Store in Albert Lea on Friday. Tim Engstrom/Albert Lea Tribune

His story of coming to Albert Lea goes back further. He was born in Gangaw, Myanmar, a country that also goes by the name Burma. He is among many Burmese refugees in the United States, coming in 2008 as a political refugee, but he is not among the Karen people, like many in Albert Lea are. He is a part of the Burman people, the largest ethnicity in Myanmar.

However, Ko, 30, saw a business opportunity when he noticed Albert Lea has a growing Asian population without an Asian grocery store.

Ko came from Myanmar to Arizona, where he resided for eight months. He came to Des Moines because he had friends there, then began working in Marshalltown at Lennox, a manufacturer of furnaces, boilers and air conditioners. Eventually, he began working at an Asian grocery store in Marshalltown and learned the trade.

So has business been since the opening?

“Every business is slow when it is started,” he said.

The store sells Asian and American brands of rice by the box or by the bag. And by the bag includes bags as big as 50 pounds. There is sticky, sweet, jasmine, white and other types of rice.

Aisles have all kinds of food found in Asian dishes: betel nuts, bamboo shoots, rice noodles, curry, ginger root, garlic, lemon grass, turmeric powder, mung beans, pickled green chilis, sweet potatoes, roasted butter beans, shallots, taro root, shrimp paste, yellow bean paste, ginseng, sweet and sour stir fry, among other selections.

There were Asian brands for candy, cookies, biscuits, crackers and wafers as well as traditional topical ointments for pain relief.

Carmen Rosas, who grew up in Albert Lea, said she enjoys shopping at the Yaw Asian Grocery Store because it is close to home and she likes Asian dishes. Her favorite is beef stir fry.

“I find a lot of the food I like. I don’t to go to the Cities anymore,” she said.