a leader in urban farming and food policy<\/a> after purchasing the last remaining farm in Milwaukee and selling produce he harvested to underserved communities.<\/p>\n\u201cSomething kind of clicked,\u201d Auset said. \u201cWe have the ability to feed everyone. We just don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
But if searching for healthful food in South L.A. was a challenge, navigating bureaucracies and food distributors as a young Black female entrepreneur was even more daunting.<\/p>\n
There was an inspector who, after surveying the building\u2019s remodeling progress, asked, \u201cIs this your husband\u2019s project?\u201d<\/p>\n
A vegan ice cream distributor sounded incredulous when learning that Auset wanted to sell the items in her part of town.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was like, \u2018Vegan ice cream on Slauson?\u2019\u201d Auset recalled. \u201cHe just laughed me off the phone \u2014 and he never sent me the price list.\u201d<\/p>\n
One supplier agreed to sell to Auset, then refused to deliver to a neighborhood it considered too dangerous for its drivers.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1764685450_314_\")
<\/p>\n
Olympia Auset, owner of organic and vegan S\u00fcprmarkt, stands inside the bulk room where shoppers have a wide variety of grains and nuts to choose from.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Driving west past Crenshaw Boulevard along the section of Slauson where S\u00fcprmarkt is located, auto repair shops and fast food restaurants dominate the scene.<\/p>\n
Then comes a freshly painted, black-and-white, Craftsman-style bungalow with its towering \u201cS\u00fcprmarkt\u201d street sign. Auset said the location is meaningful to her because the late rapper and entrepreneur Nipsey Hussle, whose community-minded approach to business she admired, operated his clothing store, the Marathon, just down the street.<\/p>\n
At S\u00fcprmarkt, sunny positivity and Black consciousness prevail, a carryover from the building\u2019s former life as home to Mr. Wisdom, a health-conscious shop. <\/p>\n
Patio furniture and a planter box bursting with fresh herbs, wildflowers and cherry tomatoes greet customers on a wooden deck at the entrance, along with a cabinet resting on a post that contains a tiny library of Afrocentric books.<\/p>\n
Celebrating the beauty of Black culture and Black people is important when promoting wellness in the community, Auset said.<\/p>\n
That mind-set also infuses the interior, where a wall of glazed tiles tinted in rich teal sets the mood. Some are painted with images of what Auset calls \u201cancestors\u201d \u2014 among them singer Nina Simone and activist Fred Hampton. R&B music is playing. Frankincense fills the air.<\/p>\n
Displays of fruits and vegetables, as well as vegan, nutrient-rich dry goods and snacks, anchor the small space. In a separate room, Auset has self-serve bins of bulk beans and grains. She just expanded with a juice bar in the rear of the store.<\/p>\n
The backyard \u201clearning garden\u201d is a work in progress, but Auset shows off a collection of greens and herbs and says she plans to host farming and holistic health workshops there.<\/p>\n
Hannibal Ali, a physical trainer, came in for fruit and vegetables for his raw food diet. He shops here because of the convenient location, he said, but as a fellow Black Angeleno, it goes deeper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of access to healthy food,\u201d said Ali, who also volunteers at the nearby Park Hill community garden. \u201cIf we don\u2019t support ourselves, who\u2019s going to support us? Self-preservation is a very important thing in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
D\u00e9rly Barajas lives five doors down from S\u00fcprmarkt and comes in every few days to pick up items for his own raw-food diet.<\/p>\n
Barajas, an educator who works with adults who have special needs, said that before the market opened, he too resorted to busing out of the neighborhood to buy groceries.<\/p>\n
He describes the store as a blessing. For two years, Barajas has been battling a mysterious illness that causes fainting spells and pressure in his head and chest. Thinking the illness might be connected to his diet, he cut out fast food and sugary, ultra-processed snacks.<\/p>\n
He surprised himself recently by purchasing some barbecue jackfruit that looked just like the meat for a sloppy Joe.<\/p>\n
Part of the charm of the store, he said, is that it introduces customers to a new way of thinking about ingredients, food preparation and what it means to care for your body.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf somebody decides that they want to eat well,\u201d Auset likes to say, \u201cthat should not be a luxury.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, she added, shopping for your health can still feel special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olympia Auset\u2019s route to opening a health food emporium in one of the food deserts of Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[179,9182,45019,45022,21059,45021,48,52,51,29233,47,50,49,290,45017,45020,6877,826,1291,45018,13804],"class_list":["post-78227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-community","tag-customer","tag-enough-food","tag-food-desert","tag-fruit","tag-healthful-food","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-large-part","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-neighborhood","tag-olympia-auset","tag-slauson-avenue","tag-south-l-a","tag-store","tag-street","tag-suprmarkt","tag-vegetable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}