Taste of Africa and the Caribbean comes to Shelburne via new store

Written By PAULA BROWN

Shelburne residents will now be able to get African Caribbean food with the opening of a new grocery store in town. 

Doris and Abigail Dapaah had a soft opening for their family owned business African Caribbean Grocery Store last Thursday (July 9). The grocery store, located on Owen Sound St., sells a variety of food products from fruit, meat and exotic ingredients as well as beauty products – all based around African and Caribbean culture. 

“Our goal is to make sure that the customer, when they come in and they have a meal in mind for dinner, they don't have to travel too much,” said Abigail. “They can come to our store and get all the ingredients.”

Previously living in Brampton, the women moved to Shelburne in 2016. When it came to cooking delicacies from their home country of Ghana, Doris said that they would often have to travel to Brampton in order to buy food or ingredients for their recipes. From there the idea to open the grocery store formed. 

“We moved from Brampton where there are many of these shops there,” said Doris. “When we moved up here there was nothing like this, so we found a need.” 

The grocery store has been two years in the making for the mother and daughter duo. Looking at a few different locations for the grocery store, they said they struggled to find a place that fit their taste, until they found the Owen Sound St. building. From January to July the duo worked on opening the store for their soft launch, a process of quietly opening store doors, on July 9.  

Since quietly opening the doors last week, both woman have described the response to the grocery store from the community as amazing, while also surprising. 

“You know, not everybody came to buy but they just came to see and the encouragement we got from them was just so amazing,” said Doris. “I'm so happy about it.” 

Mayor Wade Mills met with the duo the day the doors opened and told the Free Press that the grocery store is going to be a good addition to the town and hopes the community will get behind and support them.

“We should be starting to see businesses crop up through town that are serving the different segments of our growing community,” said Mayor Mills 

Waiting for more inventory, the grocery store does not yet have an official grand opening, but Doris and Abigail say they plan to have one soon.