A Project of GABAWorks
GABA Healthy Markets
African and Caribbean food businesses are not just retail operations. They are community infrastructure. The Healthy Markets Initiative invests in them the same way GABAWorks invests in every business we serve: with direct resources, technical assistance, and a long-term commitment to sustainability.
See the Work
Community Investment in Action
Why This Work Exists
Food and Grocery Is One of the Most Active Sectors in Our Community. It Is Also One of the Most Underserved.
Food production, import, and retail represents one of the highest concentrations of African and Caribbean entrepreneurial activity across Michigan. These businesses are not marginal. They are central to how our communities eat, gather, and sustain themselves.
And yet no dedicated technical assistance organization in Michigan was serving them before GABA. No institution was positioned to connect these business owners to the resources, capital programs, and support networks that exist across the state.
The Healthy Markets Initiative is GABA's direct response to that gap. It applies the full GABAWorks model to the food and grocery sector: direct investment, business development support, supply chain access, and connection to the GABA Marketplace Center.
GABAWorks In Action
Case Study
A Freezer. A Family. A Business Built to Last.
When the Family African Market in Detroit needed a commercial freezer to preserve inventory and expand capacity, they did not need advice. They needed a partner who would show up with real resources. The GABA Foundation did exactly that.
Family African Market · Detroit, Michigan
That Is What Community Investment Actually Looks Like.
We invested in a new commercial freezer and delivered it directly to their door. Not a referral. Not a training. A real resource that produced a real result for a family-owned business that had earned it.
That is the Healthy Markets model. We meet businesses where they are and invest in what they actually need to grow.
- Increased inventory capacity and reduced food waste
- Expanded product offerings for the surrounding community
- Strengthened the long-term sustainability of a family-owned business
- Demonstrated that African-owned food businesses in Detroit have an institution in their corner
What We Provide
From First Consultation to Sustainable Growth
Every service is personalized, culturally competent, and designed to produce measurable results for food and grocery businesses across Michigan.
Direct Investment
When a business needs equipment, supplies, or infrastructure to grow, we invest directly. Not just advice. Real resources that produce real results.
Technical Assistance
Personalized business consultations that identify specific gaps and build a customized support plan around each owner's needs and goals.
Capital Connections
We connect food business owners to banking relationships, credit-building tools, and funding sources that have historically been out of reach for this community.
Supply Chain and Market Access
Through the GABA Marketplace Center, entrepreneurs gain access to supply chain infrastructure, trade corridors, and African and Caribbean markets locally and globally.
Supplier Relationships
We help owners build and diversify supplier networks so that sourcing culturally relevant goods does not come at a premium that undermines their margins.
Policy Advocacy
Every business we support adds to the evidence base that drives GABA's legislative agenda. The food businesses we serve inform the policy fights we take on.
The Research Behind the Work
The Data Is Clear. The Need Is Real.
The case for the Healthy Markets Initiative is not anecdotal. It is documented by federal surveys, national research institutions, and GABA's own landscape analysis. African and Caribbean food and grocery businesses are economically significant, structurally underserved, and ready for an institution built with them in mind.
of privately held grocery stores in the United States are immigrant-owned, representing an ownership concentration well beyond immigrants' share of the overall labor force or business ownership.
Americas Society / Fiscal Policy Instituteof Black-owned businesses were denied a loan, line of credit, or merchant cash advance in 2024, the highest denial rate of any racial or ethnic group, compared to 18 percent of white-owned businesses.
Federal Reserve Small Business Credit Surveylabor force participation rate for Sub-Saharan African immigrants in 2024, significantly higher than both the overall foreign-born population at 68 percent and U.S.-born population at 63 percent.
Migration Policy Institute, 2024 ACSof workers across the U.S. food supply chain are immigrants, well above their 17 percent share of the overall civilian workforce, reflecting the outsized role immigrant communities play in feeding America.
Migration Policy Institute, 2025Connected Infrastructure
The GABA Marketplace Center
The Healthy Markets Initiative is backed by Michigan's first African and Caribbean trade and distribution hub. Food businesses supported through this initiative gain access to the Marketplace Center's physical infrastructure, supply chain resources, and business ecosystem.
This is not a program with a waiting list and a brochure. It is an institution being built in real time, in Metro Detroit, to serve the Great Lakes region for generations.
Located At
13530 Auburn Street
Inkster, Michigan
Ready to Grow Your Food Business?
The Healthy Markets Initiative is open to African and Caribbean food and grocery business owners across Michigan. Apply to GABAWorks today and let us build a pathway together.
Apply to GABAWorks Support Our Work