The largest retailer in the country announced plans this week to close four of its eight stores in the city, citing growing financial losses. Three are in predominantly Black and low-income neighborhoods, and their closures with little warning mean residents — including elderly citizens and people without reliable transportation — will have to travel further to buy groceries and pick up their medications.

Multiple stakeholders are making it their business - and a moral obligation - to bring food and related businesses to communities on the margins.

Created in honor of Wally Amos, the founder of Famous Amos, the Ingredients for Success Entrepreneurs Initiative aims to provide promising Black business owners with capital and coaching resources. More than 3,200 owners vied for this year’s funding round

Forty Acres Fresh Market will break ground this year on a Chicago Avenue store. In the meantime, the business is hold weekly community markets

During Black History Month, we're taking a look at people making a difference. One of our History Makers is working to conquer food inequality in Chicago. Liz Abunaw has always had a passion for food. 

In this week's Unifying America edition of the Kaleidoscope, we speak with Liz Abunaw, a Black woman who founded a grocery store pop up and delivery service in the predominantly African American Austin neighborhood on the Chicago's West Side.

"There was nobody accountable for this situation of why neighborhoods don't have affordable food," Abunaw explained. She deliberately chooses not to use the phrase "food desert" because, as Abunaw explains, deserts imply a naturally occurring phenomenon whereas apartheid points to man-made systemic issues plaguing underserved communities.

Austin is the city of Chicago's second largest neighborhood in terms of population, and it's predominantly Black with lower and middle class residents. Yet it has no fresh food stores — just chains and fast food restaurants. Liz Abunaw is working to change that.

With all the possibilities, Abunaw said there are still some deficiencies. The West Side neighborhood has struggled for years to keep a grocery store and businesses are drying up as well. Abunaw said it was something that hit the first time she stumbled into the area in 2016.

Food deserts plague plenty of neighborhoods near and around the City of Chicago. Many of the Chicago neighborhoods are considered food deserts where affordable, healthy, and nutritional foods are hard to find.  The Forty Acres Fresh Market plans to do its part to meet the Austin neighborhood’s needs by creating a local food market.

Elizabeth Abunaw discusses the backstory and impact of Forty Acres Fresh Market, on The Talk of Chicago.

Forty Acres Fresh Market is expected to expand its pop-ups and delivery service into a full-service brick-and-mortar location at 5713 W. Chicago Ave.

The market helps provide affordable and healthy food access to residents in an area with few grocery stores.

Elizabeth Abunaw’s journey to starting Forty Acres Fresh Market began in 2016, when she accidentally ended up somewhere in the West Side of Chicago on her way to run an errand. As soon as she got off the bus, she realized she was in unfamiliar territory. But she needed cash, so she looked up locations for her bank. There were none nearby. 

The fresh market is competing for a $50,000 grant that would allow it to open a store, ending "food apartheid," its founder said.

A businesswoman looking to start a brick-and-mortar grocery store in the Austin neighborhood has a plan to address the famous imbalance of commercial activity between the West Side community and Oak Park, its neighbor to the west. 

The funding brings the start up one step closer to opening a grocery store to end "food apartheid" on the West Side, founder Liz Abunaw said.

A pop-up fresh produce market in Austin; a tech-based, fresh food delivery start-up in Roseland, and a race and health equity focused nonprofit on the Near West Side are among 11 initiatives to improve the health of marginalized communities nationwide being funded by a Social Impact Fund launched by the American Heart Association.

"There's nothing like the west side of Chicago. It's the most unique, vibrant, weird, but completely awesome," said Liz Abunaw, a new business owner in the west side Austin neighborhood.

The event – presented by Forty Acres Fresh Market and the Austin Av 72 Chicago SSA – will offer a large selection of affordable produce, recipe demonstrations, free samples and special Mother’s Day giveaways. Food featured by The Black Cat Kitchen and Chef Maria also will be featured.

Liz Abunaw, originally from upstate New York, worked in produce sales for General Mills and came to study business and social entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago in 2012. She wanted to see businesses bringing real solutions to social problems — not do-gooding as a public relations act.