This piece was made possible as part of a grant from the Julia Child Foundation
国家杂货交付平台，ojaexpress，帮助消费者获得在典型的美国杂货店中找不到的适合文化的食物。
该公司成立于伊利诺伊州的芝加哥，允许用户通过移动应用在其网站上购物，以找到与文化相关的食物并将其送到家中。购物者输入他们的邮政编码，以从当地的小型企业中找到当日交货的成分。如果当地商店不在购物者的半径外，他们可以在全国范围内运送出产品。
作为来自尼日利亚的第一代和第二代移民，食品对公司的联合创始人佛拉（Fola Dada）和博伊德·索比南（Boyede Sobitan）一直很重要。但是由于systemic inequities, it can be challenging for Black and Brown immigrant communities to access culturally appropriate foods. According to Psyche Williams-Forson, a professor at the University of Maryland College Park, this presents a食物通道的障碍。
Dada tells Food Tank that they started OjaExpress because they “saw that there were several grocery-delivery solutions available and popping up, but none of them were delivering groceries for the immigrant community.”
Described as an ethnic grocery marketplace, OjaExpress hopes to make these ingredients more accessible.
While many criticsdenounce种族一词是因为它意味着白人是优越的标准，但达达（Dada）依靠“每种文化的起源都是种族；对我们来说，种族是一种文化代表，Ojaexpress的目标是提供一个提升各种种族的平台，”达达告诉食品坦克。w88优德老虎机平台
Ojaexpress的主要重点是将移民人口置于数字化社区的最前沿。他们保持一个blog他们共享以文化为灵感的食谱和故事。达达告诉食品坦克：“技w88优德老虎机平台术倾向于商品化事物，但是对我们来说，我们希望我们的平台与社区有关，创造经验和分享文化。”
Beyond building cultural competence, OjaExpress also hopes to help sustain immigrant grocers and small businesses. “We are building a technology that primarily focuses on supporting small mom and pop stores—especially during COVID-19 where a lot of stores are going out of business, we want to supply technology to help them stay alive,” Dada tells Food Tank.
尽管大流行对公司提出了后勤挑战，但Ojaexpress也有增长机会。达达告诉《食品坦克》：“我们已经看到了需求的增长，我们看到人们从我们尚未访问过的城市下达命令。”w88优德老虎机平台
“Food is a very important factor of life and culture, as we get bigger, we want to use food to connect people, address the digital divide, and even issues of racism,” Dada tells Food Tank.
Photo courtesy of Lance Cheung, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
