How an Angeleno created a health-conscious oasis in the South LA food desert

Olympia Ausset’s path to opening a health food emporium in one of Los Angeles’ food deserts began with her trip to a grocery store.

That was 16 years ago. Ausset was fresh out of college and living on a vegan diet. There aren’t a lot of healthy options in her neighborhood, and she has to commute two hours by bus to buy nutritious food that fits her budget as a federal food aid recipient.

“You spend all this time on the bus, get to a place that has healthy food and then you have to argue with yourself: Can I have this apple?” Asst noted.

Hanbal Ali shops at the supermarket. Ali goes there for the organic options and because it’s a black-owned business in the neighborhood.

From one of those soulless jaunts across town, Ausset found Süprmarkt, a nonprofit organic produce business on Slauson Avenue in South LA that started as a street pop-up in 2016 and grew to a storefront grocery store in 2024 thanks in large part to a crowdfunding campaign from the community.

Inequalities in access to healthy foods are widespread across the country but hit hardest among its poorest residents and communities of color, USC researchers found in a study last year.

About 25% of Los Angeles County residents don’t consistently know they’ll have enough to eat, and even more, 29% lack access to nutritious foods that can help prevent heart disease, diabetes and obesity. Nearly 30% of black and Latino residents, who make up the majority of South LA, have trouble finding healthy food.

Among federal food assistance recipients through this state’s CalFresh program, 39% are food insecure and 45% are nutritionally insecure.

This is in a situation where, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, nearly half of the state’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts are produced.

For Aussie, this increasingly looks more like injustice than insecurity. With just $300 and the help of her loved ones when she started, Aust bought enough produce to load it into the back of her friend’s Suzuki and sold it in Lemert Park and other locations around South Lake.

“The first time we came out there, we sold more than anything and people were just so thankful,” Oset recalled. “It was crazy, hearing from people in their 40s and 50s who were like, ‘I don’t have this in my neighborhood.’

Manager Chelsea Carson shares a warm moment with customer Illana Vela after picking up her groceries at the supermarket.

Since opening, Auset has offered special discounts to customers receiving monthly food assistance, most recently during the November delay in federal SNAP payments. As thousands of low-income Angelenos line up at food banks, Ausset launched the SNAP Back program, matching 125 donors with customers who receive food assistance, enabling them to buy food at the store.

But it’s not just those most vulnerable during delays or cuts in federal aid who are at risk, said Kayla De La Haye, director of the USC Institute for Food System Equity.

“It’s also a lot of people who are just low-income, or even middle-income, who are really struggling to make their budget work,” said De La Haye, whose team co-authored the Food and Nutrition Study.

Food insecurity rates are consistently two to three times worse for black and Latino Angelenos than for white residents, she said.

For Aussie, the scary thing about food and nutrition insecurities is how they can feel like facts of life.

“That’s what was normalized for me growing up” in LA, she said. “It was always, ‘You have to go to a white neighborhood for this. … I knew something was wrong, but I never thought about the real reasons.’

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1. Organic matcha and mushroom coffee are available for customers. 2. Caffeine-free organic drinks. 3. Various raw canned drinks are available for customers. 4. Malcolm X, left, and other notable African Americans can be found on the “Wall of Fathers” inside the supermarket.

The first seeds of this growing awareness were planted while he was studying at Howard University, a historically black university in Washington, DC.

She learned about Will Allen, a former professional basketball player who became a leader in urban agriculture and food policy after buying the last remaining farm in Milwaukee and selling the produce he raised to underserved communities.

“Kind of clicked,” Oset said. “We have the ability to feed everyone, we just don’t.”

But if finding healthy food in South LA was a challenge, navigating bureaucracy and food distributors as a young black female entrepreneur was more difficult.

There was an inspector who, after surveying the building’s remodeling progress, asked: Is this your husband’s project?

A vegan ice cream distributor looked incredulous when he learned Aust wanted to sell the product in a part of town.

“He was like, ‘Vegan ice cream on.’ Slawson“He just laughed me off the phone — and he never sent me a price list,” Oset recalled.

A supplier agreed to sell to Aust, then refused to deliver to a neighborhood that was too dangerous for drivers.

Olympia Auset, owner of the organic and vegetarian Süprmarkt, stands in a large room where customers have a variety of grains and nuts to choose from.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Driving west on Crenshaw Boulevard along the Slauson section where supermarkets are located, auto repair shops and fast food restaurants dominate the scene.

Then comes a freshly painted, black and white, artisan-style bungalow with its huge “Süprmarkt” street sign. Ausset said the location made sense to her because the late rapper and entrepreneur Nipsey Hustle, who praised her community-minded approach to business, ran her clothing store, Marathon, across the street.

In the Süprmarkt, the sun is positive and black consciousness prevails, from the building’s former life the home of Mr. Wisdom, a health knowledge store.

Patio furniture and a planter box full of fresh herbs, wildflowers and cherry tomatoes greet customers on a wooden deck at the entrance, with a cabinet at a post containing a small library of Afrocentric books.

Celebrating the beauty of black culture and black people is important when promoting well-being in the community, Aust said.

This mentality also permeates the interior, where a wall of glazed tiles in a rich teal sets the mood. Some are painted with images of what Ausset calls “fathers” – among them singer Nina Simone and activist Fred Hampton. R&B music is playing. Beans fill the air.

Fruit and vegetable displays, as well as vegetables, nutrient-rich dry goods and snacks, anchor the small space. In a separate room, Osset has self-serve bins of large beans and grains. She just expanded with a juice bar in the back of the store.

A “learning garden” in the courtyard is a work in progress, but Oset displays a collection of herbs and plants and says he plans to host gardening and holistic health workshops there.

Hanbal Ali, a physical trainer, came up with fruits and vegetables for his raw food diet. He shops here because of the convenient location, he said, but as a friend of Black Angelenos, it goes deeper.

“We don’t have a lot of access to healthy food,” said Ali, who also volunteers at the nearby Park Hill Community Garden. “If we don’t support ourselves, who will support us? Self-care is the most important thing in our society.”

Dirley Barajas lives five doors down from a supermarket and comes in every few days to buy supplies for her raw food diet.

Barajas, a teacher who works with adults with special needs, said that before the market opened, she also resorted to buying groceries outside the neighborhood.

He describes the shop as a blessing. For two years, Barajas has been battling a mysterious illness that causes fainting and pressure in his head and chest. Thinking the disease might be related to his diet, he cut out fast food and sugary, ultra-processed foods.

He recently surprised himself by buying some barbecue jackfruit that looked like meat for Joey.

Part of the store’s appeal, he said, is that it introduces customers to a new way of thinking about ingredients, food preparation and what it means to take care of your body.

“If someone decides they want to eat well,” Aust likes to say, “it doesn’t have to be a luxury.”

That said, she added, shopping for your health can still feel special.