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Muju International Groceries is owned and operated by Grace Rai and her husband Ujjwal Rai. Grace and Ujjwal are Bhutanese refugees who registered in refugee camps in Nepal, so they grew up surrounded by Nepali culture and food. Grace felt frustrated and unhappy when she immigrated to the United States because she had trouble adjusting to the food and culture. One day, her family was visited by a woman named Muju who brought them Nepali food, and the family felt at home for the first time since they came to America. Grace knew that other immigrants felt the same frustration, unhappiness, and longing for a taste of home, so she created Muju International Groceries with the slogan “You Are Home.”
Muju started out as an app food delivery service. Grace and Ujjwal recognized that immigrant families often lacked time to shop for groceries because of their long work hours. In order to make foods more accessible to working immigrant families, the Muju app is one of, if not the only, food delivery app to accept EBT (food stamps). Users can also pay with credit/debit, or with cash when the food is delivered. After Muju opened up as a fully online retailer about a year ago, they decided to expand their clientele base and create more of a reputation in the community by opening a brick-and-mortar store. They also realized that Utica is even more diverse than they expected when they started their business. Muju now carries cuisine from a wide range of cultures, including India, Japan, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Jamaica, Thailand, West African countries, and more.
Grace and Ujjwal hope to expand the business even more and have some really exciting plans in the works. They are working with a contractor to create a kitchen space in their brick-and mortar store, where they plan to invite immigrant grandmothers and elders to do kitchen pop-up events. They wanted to bring immigrant grandmothers to cook food to sell at the store’s café because women are already at a disadvantage in the work force, and these immigrant grandmothers often do not speak English and thus only work inside the home. Muju is also expanding their delivery service. They are developing new software for their app to allow them to provide food delivery service for other international markets and small business in Utica. The meat at Muju is sourced from the local Amish population, and Grace and Ujjwal have imported seeds and will be planting them on Amish land this coming February, so that even more of the store’s produce can be grown locally this summer.
Grace and Ujjwal work very hard to ensure every part of their service is accessible to immigrant and refugee communities in Utica. As refugees themselves, they understand and relate to the life experiences of others in the community. Ujjwal noted how he and Grace’s experiences as “1.5 Generation” immigrants have shaped their ability to connect with other immigrants. 1.5 Generation (sometimes referred to as 1.5G) immigrants are first-generation immigrants who came to the new country before or during their early teens. This means they went through processes of assimilation and socialization in the new country during their formative years, but they still typically retain the native language and cultural identities from their native countries. Ujjwal says this plays a huge role in his ability to bridge the gap between first generation immigrants and the second generation. Since Grace and Ujjwal started their commitment to bringing home to other immigrants in Utica, they have seen real joy in their store. Ujjwal spoke of seeing people dancing in the aisles, telling other customers about their culture, and even bringing dishes made with ingredients bought at Muju for Grace and Ujjwal to taste.
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