Author: The Nation

For many African and Caribbean immigrants in the United States, access to familiar food is still defined by distance, inconvenience and informal networks. Families often travel long hours across cities to find specific ingredients or rely on a limited number of restaurants whose menus come close to home cooking.

Despite the growth of food delivery technology in the U.S., most African and Caribbean grocery stores and restaurants remain excluded from mainstream platforms, largely due to high commission costs, digital barriers and operational models that do not reflect how small ethnic businesses function.

ETNOWE, a niche digital marketplace founded by Nigerian-born entrepreneur Ebenezer Oyinlade, is attempting to address that gap. 

Launched in 2022 after being conceptualised during the COVID-19 pandemic, the platform connects customers to African and Caribbean grocery stores and restaurants through a single delivery app.

Unlike mainstream delivery services that prioritise scale and high-volume restaurants, ETNOWE focuses on small, community-owned food businesses that traditionally operate offline. Many of these businesses rely on walk-in customers and word-of-mouth patronage, limiting their reach even within diaspora communities.

By providing logistics support and simplified digital tools, ETNOWE enables these vendors to reach customers beyond their immediate neighbourhoods. The company says its model is designed to reflect the realities of ethnic food retail, where products, pricing and supply chains differ significantly from conventional grocery systems.

Between 2023 and 2024, the platform expanded into multiple U.S. states, onboarding more than 30 African and Caribbean grocery stores and restaurants and processing over 10,000 orders. In 2025, it introduced ETNOWE Chops, a delivery service focused on ready-to-eat meals, as demand for restaurant food increased among users.

As of 2026, ETNOWE operates in Texas, Maryland, Georgia and Indiana, with notable usage in cities such as Dallas and Washington, D.C. The platform offers same-day delivery, often within a few hours, and positions itself as a lower-cost option compared to dominant food delivery apps.

In January 2026, the company raised $300,000 in pre-seed funding, which it says will be used to expand delivery coverage, onboard more vendors and strengthen its technical and operational capacity over the next year.

The company is operating within a U.S. ethnic food and grocery market estimated to be worth about $50 billion, driven by expanding immigrant populations and sustained demand for culturally specific food.

Oyinlade said the platform was built to serve diaspora communities often overlooked by mainstream technology.

“African and Caribbean food is everywhere in the U.S., but access is not evenly distributed,” he said. “Most of these businesses are offline, and most delivery platforms are not built for them.”

ETNOWE said its growth has been largely organic, with early adoption driven by community demand rather than aggressive marketing. The company plans to seek institutional funding in 2027 as it scales operations.

Analysts say platforms that address structural access gaps, rather than convenience alone, are increasingly shaping the next phase of food delivery, particularly within immigrant communities.

For many African and Caribbean families, services like ETNOWE represent not just convenience, but a practical response to long-standing barriers to food access in diaspora communities.