Harmons

Harmons Grocery Company

Trade name	Harmons Neighborhood Grocer
Company type	Private
Industry	Retail
Founded	1932 (Salt Lake County, Utah)
Founders	George Reese (Jake) Harmon and Irene Harmon
Headquarters	West Valley City, Utah United States
Number of locations	20 (1 flower shop) (2021)
Products	Grocery
Revenue	US$850 million (2021)
Owner	Harmon family (100%)
Number of employees	4,000 (2021)
Website	www.harmonsgrocery.com

Harmons Grocery Company, doing business as Harmons Neighborhood Grocer (Known as Harmons Your Neighborhood Grocer until 2020), is an upscale supermarket chain located within the state of Utah, United States, with 20 stores throughout the Wasatch Front and in the St. George area.

Description

Harmons store in Orem, April 2016

In addition to selling groceries and some non-food items, Harmons also have pharmacies, post offices, full-time chefs, and some also have coffee bars, on-site dietitians, and cooking schools. The grocery store chain emphasizes sourcing from local companies and farms, and focuses on making many of their store brand products with higher-quality ingredients. In addition, many of their deli, bakery, and meat department products are made from scratch.^[1]

History

In 1932, George Reese (Jake) Harmon and his wife Irene started a small grocery store called "The Market Spot" which initially sold fruit and vegetables. The couple lived in a small living quarters behind the store which was located at 3300 South and Main Street in Salt Lake County (modern day South Salt Lake). Soon, the store was selling many other grocery items. In 1942, after a vehicle collided with the store and caused serious structural damage, the Harmons went on to open a cafe. By 1945, the cafe was sold and a new grocery store, initially called "The Green Store", was opened at 4000 West and 3500 South. This site eventually became the first "Harmons Market" and is still a Harmons site today, although with a new structure (the original Harmons Market burned in 1971). A new replacement store became the first "Harmons Supermarket". By 1976, there were two Harmons, and by 1998, there were eight.^[2]

Harmons store at the City Creek Center in downtown Salt Lake City, January 2013

Since then, Harmons has more than doubled the number of locations. Despite the closing of its "5 Points" store in Northern Ogden near Harrisville in 2015 (which they sold to Ridley's Family Markets, which would also close their doors leaving the sizable property empty as of early 2020),^{[3] [4]} Harmons has expanded somewhat aggressively throughout Utah. In 2011, they took over a 10,000-square-foot (930 m²) (compared to the average size for Harmons of 68,000 square feet [6,300 m²]), locally owned market known as Emigration Market, opening up their first "urban" location in the Yalecrest neighborhood in Salt Lake City,^[5] while also expanding into Farmington at the Station Park development.^[6] They expanded their urban presence with the opening of a new location on the east end of the City Creek Center development in the heart of downtown Salt Lake City in March 2012.^[7] They continued with another expansion phase in 2016, opening two locations in Santa Clara in southern Utah,^[8] and Lehi on the Wasatch Front.^[9] They opened their 18th store in Holladay - their 3rd "urban" location, in mid February 2018,^[10] while a 19th location opened in Riverton in mid-2018 as part of a major new mixed-use development.^[11]

At some point prior to 2004, Harmons would begin selling gas at their stores. They originally started with stores within Salt Lake County, Utah, speciallifally their West Valley, Midvale, Kearns, South Jordan and Draper locations.^[12] By February 2022, they had 14 locations offering fuel. Additionally, in an effort to Go Green, Harmons also started selling a "TIER 3" gas at all 14 fuel locations. A release on their website dated February 6th 2022 states that the TIER 3 gas is "cleaner, contains less sulfur, and creates less air pollution" vs others without this designation. Furthermore, the release states "Tier 3 refers to a set of national standards developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that requires refineries to reduce the sulfur content in unleaded gasoline from an annual average of 30 parts per million (PPM) to 10 PPM."

In 2009, Harmons won the Utah Green Business Award from Utah Business Magazine.^[13]

In 2017, Harmons launched an online shopping platform for curbside pickup or delivery.

In 2020, Harmons dropped the word "Your" from the name, shortening it to "Harmons Neighborhood Grocer".

In 2021, Harmons began construction of another "urban" location near the North Shore area of the Daybreak development. This location opened on Apr. 27, 2022. It was also announced that the grocer plans to build a store in the Park City area as part of the Tanger Outlet redevelopment.^[14]

Locations

Utah

Davis County

• Farmington - Station Park

Salt Lake County

• Draper
  • Draper
  • Bangerter Crossing
• Holladay - Holladay Market
• Kearns - Cougar
• Midvale - Seventh Street
• Riverton - Mountain View Village
• Salt Lake City
  • Brickyard
  • City Creek
  • Emigration Market
• South Jordan
  • The District
  • South Jordan
  • Daybreak
• Taylorsville
• West Valley City
  • Harmons Flower Shop
  • West Valley

Summit County

• Park City (Announced)

Utah County

• Lehi - Traverse Mountain
• Orem

Washington County

• Santa Clara
• St. George

Weber County

• Roy

References

1. "The Store Brand: Harmons launches its own line of products—just don't call them generics". Utahbusiness.com. 21 Nov 2016.
2. "Harmon's to open new 'neighborhood' stores in City Creek and Emigration Market". KSL. 11 Sep 2011.
3. "Harmons leaving Ogden location". Standard-Examiner. 17 July 2015.
4. "Ridley's/Wangsgards closing at Ogden's Five Points". standard.net. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
5. "Photos: Harmons opens Emigration Market location". Deseret News. 11 September 2011. Archived from the original on December 16, 2012.
6. "Station Park development in Farmington expanding while other projects stall". KSL. 14 July 2011.
7. "Harmons ready to get its urban groove on with downtown store". The Salt Lake Tribune. 9 February 2012.
8. "Santa Clara Harmons finally opens". The Spectrum. 25 February 2016.
9. "New Harmons grocery store nears completion". Lehi Free Press. 4 August 2016.
10. "Harmons Grocery coming to Holladay Village". Cottonwood-Holladay Journal. 19 January 2017.
11. "New mega mixed-use center coming to Riverton". Deseret News. 15 March 2017.
12. "Harmons stores launching a fuel-savings program". Deseret News. 2024-01-15. Retrieved 2024-08-10.
13. "Harmons moving along on three new stores". The Salt Lake Tribune. 1 February 2011.
14. "Is there a Park City Harmons on the horizon?". parkrecord.com. 12 June 2021. Retrieved 15 July 2021.

External links

• Official website