VIDEOS - Tropical markets booming in Châteauguay

Have you ever had guava juice, or savoured Haiti djon-djon mushrooms, chili peppers from Rwanda? To taste these sun-filled products, food enthusiasts don't have to go any further than Châteauguay, where the West Indian and African grocery retail market is booming.

Gisèle Kayembe Fontaine and her husband Jonathan Fontaine commute about 120 km a day from their residence in Saint-Paul-de-l'Île-aux-Noix to their store on D'Anjou Boulevard in Châteauguay. Kayembe Fontaine says that before opening her store Fontaine d'Afrique et des Antilles in June 2021, she always had to go to Montreal or Longueuil to find certain products. The Congolese woman understood, by consulting other members of immigrant communities in Montérégie, that many people found themselves in the same situation.

She wanted to offer them access to flavours from home.

"It's true that leaving a country, I'm in a good position to say, is difficult enough," Kayembe Fontaine explained. And to feel far from home, from people you love, from food… It’s happened to everyone before, that you smell something, and it brings you a childhood memory. These are things that are meaningful to me.”

A market study revealed that the best place to open an African grocery store in Montérégie was in Châteauguay. According to the most recent Statistics Canada figures, 6% of Châteauguay's population was of African origin in 2016 and 5.4% was of Caribbean descent.

The entrepreneur stresses, however, that her products are not reserved for African and West Indian customers only.

“Our boutique is also open to the adventurous, to people who want to taste something else, who want to discover. That's why I like to say, 'my store is a trip'", she added.

Finding comfort in food

Brandon Peters, co-owner of Marché Long Mango, located on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Boulevard, knows the importance of enjoying food from home. He and his mother Veronica bought the store in 2016, when it had already been in existence for nine years. They offer products from Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, among others.

“We’re here to provide everything that you can’t get in the big grocery stores. Things that have to be imported, things that just bring us back to our roots, Peters said, whose family comes from Grenada, in the West Indies. I feel like it’s essential, to feel at home.”

He finds that food can be a source of comfort to those who’ve had to leave their country. But also, offering a variety of products can only be a good thing for the local economy, he argues.

“Anything that Montreal has, we should have in Châteauguay. We should try to keep all of our people in Châteauguay and all of the money in the community,” he said.

An upcoming supermarket

The growing demand for food from warm climates has attracted the attention of ambitious developers. With an area of approximately 10 000 square feet, Supermarché Idia should be opening its doors in April 2022 at the former site of Plaza du Dollar et Plus on Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Châteauguay.

While the store is expected to sell "a bit of everything", it will specialize in products from Africa, the West Indies and Asia.

Supermarché Idia should be opening its doors at the former site of Plaza du Dollar et Plus on Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Châteauguay. (Photo : Le Soleil – Valérie Lessard)

“When we talk about the Afro-Caribbean community, about Black people in Quebec, we talk a lot about cities like Montreal and Laval, but Châteauguay is the second-largest agglomeration of our community in Quebec,” explained the store’s future manager, Eric Britto. From their market research, the developers realized that consumers of this type of product tend to cross the Mercier Bridge when it comes to grocery shopping.

Britto plans to hire about 20 employees to work in the store. In the coming years, the owners would like to set up Supermarché Idia franchises in a similar manner to the Adonis stores.