Tiffany Haddish hosts Prince George's roundtable on food access, Black wealth

Tiffany Haddish brought celebrity to a very local fight: how Prince George’s County can turn food access into a health strategy and, at the same time, a path to Black wealth.

The discussion mattered because the county’s food problems are not abstract. Prince George’s has faced persistent food insecurity and food-desert concerns for years, serious enough that the Prince George’s County Food Security Task Force produced a nearly 50-page report with recommendations in 2022. That same year, the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System launched a free groceries plus preventative health assessment program, a sign that county institutions have already been forced to step in where the market has not.

Haddish’s roundtable tied that reality to Diaspora Groceries, the culturally focused grocery concept she launched with Richea Jones through Diaspora Groceries Cares in 2024. The company says its mission is to empower communities by using food as medicine while expanding access to local, sustainable healthy food, BIPOC products and resources. Public reporting has also said Haddish has been working to raise $25 million for the grocery-store concept, underscoring that the idea is being pitched not just as a store, but as an economic vehicle.

The county’s policy work has been moving in the same direction. Prince George’s County Council Member Wala Blegay introduced the Food as Medicine Health Program Act of 2025, CB-67-2025, on July 1, 2025. The bill would create a county Food as Medicine program within the Health Department to support medically supportive food and nutrition interventions aimed at improving health outcomes, reducing chronic disease and addressing food insecurity. After a public hearing, the council later reported the measure favorably following support from farmers, health-care providers and community groups.

That overlap between private entrepreneurship and public policy is what gives the roundtable local weight. Diaspora Groceries is not just talking about healthier food; it is talking about a business model built around Black suppliers, culturally relevant products and community access in a county where residents in parts of Prince George’s still struggle to find full-service grocery options. The unanswered question now is whether the county’s food-as-medicine push will produce concrete partnerships, funding streams and storefronts, or remain another promising idea in a place that has heard plenty of them before.