Mohammad “Ravi” Ismail has seen firsthand how hard it can be to grab a jug of milk or loaf of bread close to home on Broadway on Buffalo’s East Side.
Dollar Tree used to be an option, but that store never reopened after the December blizzard. Some people headed to the Walmart 5 miles away in Cheektowaga, but that is a nonstarter for people without transportation.
So, in a region often called a food desert, Ismail is building an oasis.
Apon Supermarket will open at noon Saturday in a former Dollar Tree location at 1370 Broadway.
“We saw an opportunity where we could help and serve the community,” Ismail said.
Mohammed Ismail, co-owner of Apon Supermarket, details his motivation and journey to helping open Apon, a new grocer focused on South Asian goods at 1370 Broadway on the East Side.
The 14,000-square-foot store will be more than a corner grocery. It will carry traditional grocery goods and specialize in a number of South Asian and African foods to serve the diverse, nearby population.
People are also reading…
“We have a lot of Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian curries, African beans, breads, meat, chicken, fish, noodles – we have all kinds of stuff for everybody in the community,” said Ismail. “I’m trying to feed the entire neighborhood, whatever they’re looking for.”
Arman Hossein, right, and Mohammed Siddique stack a display at Apon Supermarket, which will open Saturday.
Ismail and five partners originally emigrated from Bangladesh to New York City, but moved to Buffalo in recent years to join its growing Bangladeshi American community.
The store will be in Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski’s district, and he said he welcomes the addition.
“It is, in my opinion, one of the areas in the city and in my district hardest hit by poverty, vacant land and abandonment,” he said.
The freezers are filled with different kinds of fish at Apon.
The neighborhood has a high concentration of people who do not drive, and do errands on foot.
“Broadway-Bailey is in extreme need of access to not only quality products but a variety of them,” Nowakowski said. “This will be a more positive change than the current oversaturation of corner stores that sell nothing more than alcohol, chips and snacks.”
Buffalo’s East Side is often referred to as a “food desert” because of its lack of availability of fresh, quality groceries. The disparity is also referred to as “food apartheid,” because of the way grocery chains have decided not to participate in the community.
There is a Tops Markets on Jefferson Avenue, as well as a Save-A-Lot in the Broadway Market and an Aldi across the street from the Broadway Market on Broadway.
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand visited Buffalo’s Delavan-Grider Community Center to announce proposed legislation providing incentives for grocery stores to locate in lower income communities like Buffalo’s East Side.
The city has tried to entice bigger grocery chains to locate on the East Side, but haven’t had success, largely due to the community’s low-income demographics. That has made it difficult for residents to find fresh foods, such as fruits and vegetables, at an affordable price.
In January, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., proposed incentivizing grocery stores to locate on the East Side and other food deserts using money from legislation called the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which provided funding in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills to bring more healthy food access to underserved communities across the country.
“Some grocery store chains only want to be in wealthy communities because they want people to spend a lot of money in their stores,” Gillibrand said in January. “They don’t think it’s economical to locate in lower-income areas, so we need to give them money to get them to come here.”
When the racist mass shooting at the Tops on Jefferson Avenue in 2022 forced the store to close for renovations for almost two months, it highlighted the lack of fresh food options on Buffalo’s East Side. At the time, Tops ran shuttles to another location so customers could still get groceries.
Shahajada Tanvir, right, and Mofassel Hossain stock the aisles at Apon Supermarket.
Ismail came to the United States from Bangladesh in 2000 when he was 4 years old, and grew up in Brooklyn. He owned a smaller grocery store in New York City before moving to Buffalo in 2018 seeking a better quality of life and more affordable living expenses, as well as the strong Bangladeshi American community in the area.
“Living in New York City, everything is expensive. You’re working 24/7, you can’t have time for your family and you have nothing saved for yourself after paying all the bills,” he said.
One of his sisters moved to the area and encouraged him to follow.
“She said, ‘They have opportunities here, Buffalo is growing,’” Ismail said. “So I took the initiative to come to Buffalo and I liked it.”
Apon, which specializes in South Asian foods, will offer many varieties of rice.