When Colombian-born Olga Iriarte immigrated to the U.S. in 2016 from Spain, she spent nearly a decade working jobs from retail markets to managing housekeeping staff at a hotel.
When her adult son, Nicolás, joined her in the U.S. – she eventually leaned on him to overcome the language barrier and began to pursue her dream of starting her own business. The mother-son team saw demand in Metro Detroit for authentic Latin food items and eventually launched Oliarte Products in 2024. The wholesale company sells leading foods and brands from Colombia and Venezuela that they purchase from international food distributors in Florida.
“Right now, we sell to grocery markets and restaurants, but the next step is for people come to our warehouse and buy our products,” said Nicolás. “We know that if we sell directly to people, we can sell for better prices.”
The first year of business has largely been a success with critical technical support in financial management, permitting, and licensing coming from ProsperUs Detroit, an NEI grantee. Oliarte Products has a proven revenue stream and is renting 1,800-square-feet of warehouse space in Detroit’s Eastern Market (also an NEI grantee) with an option to double its rental space as it looks to scale.
“The idea for (2025) is to grow, we want to sell to more places,” said Nicolás. “Our focus is not only for Latin American people, we want to sell our products to people from (the Detroit area) because we know that we have good quality products.”
Like many small business owners juggling all that comes with running a business, one of their biggest challenges is time. With Nicolás split between his international business studies at Oakland Community College, the business needs employee and administrative support to successfully scale.
Oliarte Products continues to work with ProsperUs Detroit to refine its business plan as it seeks a microloan and other funding from the small business support ecosystem so they can scale to meet demand. The microloan would be critical to purchasing a delivery truck, improving the company website, and adding an employee or two – all steps needed to grow the business. Oliarte Products has also received support from NEI grantee, the Michigan Hispanic Fund as part of the AdelanteMI, a free program that focuses on providing Hispanic small business owners with their needs.
Building on Nicolás’ previous professional experience in the import and export industry while living in Spain, their goal is to eventually purchase items directly from Latin countries while cultivating the market they see in Metro Detroit. That includes selling items directly to individual people in addition to their wholesale distribution operations.
“We are going to need to hire a driver, and we need to hire an accountant who can work with the (financial) documents. It’s crazy, because right now, we are doing everything,” said Nicolás Iriarte, Oliarte Products.