There are only a handful of major African and Caribbean grocery stores in Chicago, clustered on the North Side and the far South Side, Boyede Sobitan said. As a Bronzeville resident, he was sick of having to traipse across the city to get key ingredients for dishes derived from his family's roots in Nigeria.
He knew people who often used Peapod for grocery delivery, so it got Sobitan thinking: why can't there be a Peapod for African groceries?
That's the idea behind OjaExpress, a new delivery app for African and Caribbean food just launched in November by Sobitan and cofounder Fola Dada. For now, the app provides delivery services and in-app payment options for customers looking to pick up items such as egusi seeds, plantains, and stockfish, not found in many grocery stores. But in the future, Sobitan and Dada imagine a platform that promotes cross cultural experiences through food.
The app works similar to Instacart or Peapod, where customers place items and quantity in a virtual cart, place their order, and get an notice confirming a delivery. They're still in beta, and Sobitan and Dada are doing all the deliveries themselves to connect with customers and get a sense of the apps' experience for all parties. However, they are currently recruiting "sprinters," their name for future delivery drivers.
They're also connecting with mom-and-pop stores and a network of wholesalers to support other small businesses and entrepreneurs. Currently the duo are working out of the Chicago Innovation Exchange.
In launching deliveries, they realized there will have to be more specific training for drivers who are picking out unfamiliar groceries and produce. For example, yams are a staple in many African dishes, Sobitan pointed out. But it can be tough to tell if they're ripe or spoiled. So the duo have been soliciting advice from family members and friends on how to select the best produce, so they can ensure customers are getting what they need for a dish. "Our sprinters are doing service for you, and they're doing it well," said Sobitan. "We're doing it for you and we're doing this for our family."
Sobitan and Dada see their app addressing two major markets: the growing number of immigrants and a growing interest in ethnic cuisine. African immigrants are one of the fastest growing populations in the United States, roughly doubling every year since the 1970s according to the US Census. And the United States' growing diversity has also shown up on plates: a recent National Restaurant Association survey found two-thirds of diners reported a wider variety of cuisines in their diet compared to five years previous.
With this in mind, a delivery app for African and Caribbean groceries is only the first stage for a much larger vision of multicultural grocery shopping paired with the on-demand economy and rise of social media, Dada and Sobitan said. First they want to expand to other ethnicities--picking up spices at grocery stores on Devon Ave. for South Asian customers, for example. Then, they want to create a recipe platform for customers to shop by dishes they want to try, with a multimedia platform that shows videos of cooking methods and fusion dishes. Finally, they're developing a technology that can scan produce and tell if it is ripe, which will be key for future delivery drivers not familiar with picking out these items.
"We can globalize the food experience of the world, where anyone can look at some other culture cooking the food, get the recipe easy, and cook it for themselves," said Dada.
Sobitan, a University of Illinois-Chicago alum, thinks this opportunity to use technology to learn about other cultures is particularly important in Chicago.
"If we think about how segregated our city is and how diverse our city is, I think this will give people the opportunity to let everybody experience different cultures," said Sobitan. "We want to create opportunities to interact with people."
