The Mancunian Way: Afro Asda

Last month, my colleague Damon included a mention of a new supermarket aiming to become Manchester’s ‘Afro Asda’ in this newsletter. Now, two months on from their official opening in February, DOA is thriving.

Social media videos - including one from the Manchester Evening News - are part of what has helped to spread the word about this African superstore, located in Openshaw. Standing for Direct out of Africa or Delivered out of Africa, the shop is hoping to be a one-stop shop for Manchester residents of the diaspora.

Run by Nigerian natives and in-laws turned business partners Bukola Ariyo and Oladayo Olanrewaju, the shop stocks popular Nigerian foods like moin moin and palm oil. However, they do have universal African favourites like maize meal, cassava, fresh plantain, sugarcane, a range of herbs and spices commonly used in Caribbean food as well as a halal butchers, imported shea butter, black soap and more.

Ramzani Mwamba has been speaking to the pair, who have ambitious plans for their Lime Square supermarket.

“One of the big goals is, instead of a ‘world food’ aisle’ we would have a huge shop and each aisle would be separated by countries, so ‘Zimbabweans go here, Congolese go there and Jamaicans here,” Bukola joked.

“If you go into Tesco or Asda, you’re able to shop freely, and conveniently. We started thinking to ourselves, why can’t we as Africans have that?

“There are big African stores but there are none with this layout and the setting that we have," she added. “Our dream is to be the Afro-Asda. Why not?”

You can read Rami’s full story here.

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