Destiny African Market Uses Digital Tools to Share a Taste of Home

Randolph, MA

When Sola Ajao immigrated to the U.S. in 1986, she couldn’t find any food from her native Nigeria — but she saw an opportunity. Sola started cooking and selling West African dishes, and she soon had a thriving catering company. In 2021, she expanded her business by opening Destiny African Market, a grocery store stocked with African goods. 

Sola’s daughter, Adebukola, manages the business’s marketing. Adebukola uses data-powered digital advertisements to reach immigrant and Afro-Caribbean communities in Massachusetts. The ads are affordable and effective, allowing her to boost sales while saving time and money that she can invest in the business. Adebukola also uses Google Business Profile, which helps people easily find the market’s address, hours, phone number and website. The business also has an Amazon store, allowing the mother-daughter duo to offer their customers fast, reliable shipping through the platform’s logistics services. 

“We like to say that food is our love language, and we use digital tools to share that love with our community in Massachusetts and all over the country,” Adebukola said.

Adebukola worries about two proposed laws in Congress — the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) — that would regulate the data that powers her ads and break up Google and Amazon, respectively. APRA and AICOA would make valuable online tools and platforms less effective, meaning small, family-owned businesses such as Destiny African Market would have to spend more money to attract fewer customers — a one-two punch.

“Destiny African Market is my mom’s dream come true, and I don’t want anyone, especially Congress, to hold her back,” Adebukola said. 

To learn more about Sola, Adebukola and Destiny African Market, visit https://www.destinyafricanmarket.com/.