EXCLUSIVE: L.A. Grocery Entrepreneur Shares Her Fresh Take
For Ariell Illunga, the seeds of a grocery startup business came, fittingly, from a place teeming with fruits and vegetables. The founder of the new Carla's Fresh Market in northeast Los Angeles was helping run the famed Hollywood Farmers Market when she realized the power and interconnectedness of the food chain.
“It was a pretty life changing experience for me, getting to know our food system in more detail. I spent a lot of time on farms and with farmers and it changed by relationship with food,” she recalled in a recent interview with Progressive Grocer.
[Read more: “EXCLUSIVE: Chicago Entrepreneur Brings Food Justice to Life”]
That relationship with food evolved again when she had her first child and couldn’t get out as often to farmer’s market as often as she did before. “I thought, ‘We have all of these awesome products, but if you can’t go to a market, what do you do? How can we keep products in the city in a more convenient way?'” she said.
Propelled by both need and passion, Illunga looked around the area for available spaces and found one in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, close to home. “It’s a rapidly changing neighborhood – it has big box stores, and small businesses. When I looked at the spot, it met all my criteria. I wanted it to be tucked into a neighborhood and it had good parking and square footage,” she shared.
Illunga named the store for her best friend, Carla, whom she met while they were students at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia. Carla died of cancer in March 2020 and her memory inspired Illunga – then in the lockdown phase of the pandemic and putting the store plans on hold – to make her dream a reality. “I remember sitting in my backyard, the kids were running around and I was in my feelings, and her voice came through strong – ‘You have to get up and get back to work.’ She’s my lighthouse.”
Flash forward to 2023. The Black woman-owned Carla’s Fresh Market officially opened in November, and Illunga has been busy welcoming new customers at the peak of the holiday grocery shopping season. Shoppers can browse from a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, farm-raised meats, sustainable seafood, a curated assortment of pantry items and wine and beer, while also stopping by the in-store coffee stand for a drink, baked good or sandwich.
Illunga has gleaned new things about the grocery business now that the store is up and running, building on other lessons from the launch process. “The hardest part is optimizing ordering,” she explained. “You have to take a guess at the beginning because you have no data and nothing to base it off, so you don’t know.”
That part is sorting itself out now, in part because Illunga makes it a priority to talk to customers, associates and partners. “I spend a lot of time on the sales floor, really listening and ordering what people want,” she said, emphasizing the importance of a “listen and pivot” approach to food retailing.
She is also confirming how important access to fresh food can be in a local community. “Where I am located in Highland Park is on the delineating line of what is zoned as a food desert. My street is the cutoff,” she noted.
Access extends to employment, too, by sharing transferable skills, competitive wages and an opportunity to get into the grocery industry. “We hire direct from the neighborhood and the young people who work in here are getting the education of a lifetime,” she said, citing one associate she hired to help with produce. “He’s 22 and he’s now our produce lead. I’ve never seen someone take so much care and love with a box of broccolini.”
Illunga enjoys collaborating with vendors, including local farmers and BIPOC artisan producers who complement offerings from her distributor. Among others, she has teamed up with pastry pro Sasha Pilligian and sommelier LaShea Delaney, who sources from many small, minority-owned winemakers.
If seeds of inspiration led to this 3,000-square-foot neighborhood store, so did Ilunga’s roots. Her background in design and fashion are evident in the store’s aesthetic. “The store had to be beautiful – that was a prerequisite,” she said.
Working with designer friend Alexis Roohani, she aimed for a look that was both practical and a vibe. “When you walk by here fast you might think it’s a gift shop. It’s really wonderful to see people’s faces change over the course of walking the space. The regulars love it here and that alone is worth it," she remarked.
As for advice to would-be grocery entrepreneurs, Illunga said she likes to think of the bigger picture, too. “I believe in neighborhood markets as a path forward, in solving food supply issues in cities. Once upon a time, we had a lot of mom-and-pop stores, and I believe in a resurgence of that,” she declared. “I think one of the things we learned coming out of the pandemic is that people aren’t too bad. Ordering things from your phone isn’t going away, but it’s about creating a balance. When you want to go out and see people, we’re here for you.”
