Hela expanding access to African goods in Cedar Rapids

Those who love authentic African and international foods and hair products — or want to try them — will find a large variety at Hela African Food Market, 3260 South Gate Place, SW, Unit 7, Cedar Rapids. Established in 2020 after starting online, his wife Helena Tiah helps him run the store.

Founder Larry Tiah experienced a long journey before getting a business degree in the U.S. and later opening the market in Iowa. Tiah fled from war in his home country of Liberia in 2003, first to the Ivory Coast, then Guinea, before moving to Atlanta, GA, where his grandmother lived. Most of his family is now in the U.S. He sent for his wife to come to the U.S. in 2016.

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“Iowa looked like a quieter place,” said Tiah. Before landing in Coralville and then Cedar Rapids, he also lived in Boston, MA, selling Avon products, and Columbia, South Carolina, where he received his associate degree in business from an online branch of Strayer University, with a concentration in health care management. He had taken business management courses at Brown Mackey College in Atlanta.

In 2013, Hela originally opened from Tiah’s Coralville home as online African Designer Clothing because he loves clothing design. With a growing demand from customers asking for African foods, in June of 2020, he opened a store in Cedar Rapids (same address, Unit 4), adding African foods and changing the store name to Hela African Food Market. The store expanded to a large unit after that.

In addition to African clothes and hair pieces, customers will find an assortment of ingredients and seasonings plus dried fish like pink fish, kuta fish (smoked/dried catfish), and bony fish. Products include plantain, yam, and cassava fu fu (flour), brown rice, and broken rice from Asia, melon seeds, palm kernel and red oils, pink fish, and goat meat among many other products.

“We serve American, African, Hispanic, and missionary customers,” said Tiah. “Eighty percent of our customers have been to Africa, so most already know about these foods and goods. We add products as customers request them. People also buy African shirts when traveling there. Though I often hear the Creole language from Haitians and Ghanaians in the store, everyone is welcome.”

He now purchases foods from Liberia, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, plus Ghana and Nigeria. He went to Africa in December for two months on a buying trip. He also buys from import markets in Minneapolis and Chicago. His long-term goal is to expand his business to one or two countries in Africa to help the kids by employing at least five or six young folks. In Cedar Rapids, he hopes to expand the store to hire three or four employees.

“We intend to have a spring sale for African clothes including men’s and women’s dashiki (colorful shirts), and sandals, as well as women’s dresses,” said Tiah. They also sometimes have a sale before winter. In October they had a sale on braided hair products.

After relocating to Coralville, Tiah worked in mental health and obtained his Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) to become a truck driver in 2014. He still drives a truck locally and is home daily. The Tiahs have five children ages 5-18.

Tiah has received his second Kiva microloan, crowd sourced online, of $12,000 for equipment like a refrigerator and buying more food and clothing. The first loan of $6,500 was to get started with rent, bills, and goods. Kiva loans of up to $15,000 are zero-interest, zero-fee loans to be repaid within three years to local and national lenders.