The International Grocery Store Where You Can Find Food From Over 50 Countries

A well-stocked international market is great to have in your community. Large grocery store chains are usually dependable for staples, and many even have impressive international aisles of their own, but when a market is focused on hard-to-find ingredients, it's a wonderland of goodies. Saraga International Grocery is one such place. Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, the company has grown to include six locations with three in and around the capital city and three more in Columbus, Ohio.

The chain was recently voted the sixth-best international grocery store in the U.S. by USA Today. Overall, Saraga offers more than 10,000 different items from 50-plus countries. The store features aisles of ingredients from every continent. Some of the more unique finds among this treasure trove of a store include pearl sugar for Belgian liege waffles, Vietnamese iced coffee sachets, crunchy Korean pears, an unbelievably large seafood selection, Halal meats, bulk bags of ground spices, and floor-to-ceiling stacked boxes of ramen.

The first Saraga location was opened by two Korean brothers in the '90s, in part to help immigrants transition to their new lives in America. You will still hear several different languages spoken by shoppers throughout the store. In a way, Saraga is a destination for building community; there are several food stalls where people will meet for a bite before or after their shopping. One Indianapolis location hosts an international food festival which draws in residents with global food offerings, vendors, and exhibits. 

John and Bong Sung are the founders of Saraga International Grocery. Born in Seoul, South Korea, they immigrated to the United States in the 1980s and made a living by selling groceries out of a truck in Florida, Kentucky, and West Virginia. 

In 1994, they opened their first small grocery store in Bloomington, Indiana and named it "Saraga" which means "living" in Korean. The name was drawn from the desire to provide the things necessary for people to live. It wasn't long before the Sung's took notice of the growing number of immigrants in their community, many of whom couldn't find ingredients from their homeland or had to shop at several stores to get everything they needed. To remedy this, they decided to open one very large market and stock it with products from around the globe. The 62,000-square-foot location opened in 2005.

While not the biggest or most popular grocery store in Indiana or Ohio (that honor goes to Meijer), Saraga is wholly unique and an experience worth taking for anyone passing through or visiting Indianapolis or Columbus. In Cincinnati, Ohio, which is between these two cities, there's another giant international grocery destination called Jungle Jim's that actually boasts animatronics that rival Disneyland.