16-05-2025
Detroit People's Food Co-op celebrates 1 year of bringing fresh food to the community
Buying lunch at the Detroit People's Food Co-op one recent afternoon, Detroiter Idris Nia, 74, got emotional thinking about shopping at a store owned by the people, open for the people.
'We have lived through a nutritional food desert in this area, and would have to go to Dearborn for our groceries," Nia reflected, after grabbing a few vegan items from the hot bar. The co-op stands like a lone, confident soldier, adorned in chartreuse green and blaze orange paint with complementary green, yellow and orange lettering. On Woodward Avenue in the North End, the co-op is near the Fisher Building, Piety Hill and the Boston-Edison Historic District.
The term 'food desert' doesn't sit well with co-op general manager Akil Talley ― a desert, he said, is naturally occurring: 'We like to call it 'food apartheid,' because a lot of it was intentional." Observing the lack of access to fresh groceries near this location, one might agree. That's a notion that drives Talley's work ethic to do better for the residents around him. Talley also helps facilitate bringing in produce and products from locally sourced farms and creators, including D-Town Farms and hair products from F.I.G Tree Dist. and Lorraine's Premium BBQ Sauce, to name a few.
On the co-op's one-year anniversary last week, Boston-Edison resident Michelle May, 62, had produce and fresh flowers in her cart. May, also a lifetime member, said: 'It's been amazing to watch this go from idea, to this,' as she opened her arms and did a nearly 360-degree swivel 'It's so Detroit … it's community Black-led in a majority Black city.'
A lifetime membership to the co-op is $200. Members must be over 21 and residents of Michigan. Members receive certain discounts, a chance to have input on what the store carries and the ability to vote to elect the co-op's board of directors. According to the ticker posted prominently on the wall near the checkout lanes, the co-op is up to 4,279 members and they welcome an increase in that number.
As 26-year-old Detroiter Tyzhane Taylor and her 3-year-old shopped, she said, "It feels like family here."
For more information on how to become a member or rent event space, go to
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit People's Food Co-op helping solve food deserts
