Ames British Foods is a local retail store that specializes in imported British food and gifts. They also offer Internet and mail order services to people as far away as Hawaii and Florida.

“About four years ago, we took another property from my other business … and noticed it had a little bit of space, so I decided I would start stocking British foods for the local population of 100 or so expats in town,” said owner Marcus Johnson. “We just had a very small section, one wire rack and one freezer with a few little items on them.”

An expat, or expatriot, is the name given to someone who was is living temporarily or permanently in a country or culture different than the one they were born in. In this case, the expat is a person from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland who is living in the United States.

“The business grew quite quickly, I noticed,” Johnson said. “There were more than just the British expats who were coming in; I noticed there were a lot of students coming in who had traveled abroad. We had a lot of professors coming in, educated people like that who were well traveled who had tried things in Britain. So our customer base was much, much broader than I had anticipated. I thought it was only going to be British people coming in.”

As the word spread and their customer base grew, they decided to move to a newer, larger location to help accommodate the growing demand for their products.

“We also had a lot of ex-service folks, people who had served in the Air Force and the Army who had been stationed in Europe or stationed even in the Middle East who had gotten to know British people and had gotten to learn about their culture,” Johnson said. “There were also a lot of students from Australia and New Zealand because there are a lot of common foods shared between Britain and Australia. A lot of Anglophiles in this part of the world as well, people that like the Brit-coms, ‘Doctor Who’ and things like that.”

There is such little competition for British foods and merchandise — the nearest competing store being in Lawrence, Kan. — allowing Ames British Foods to run a very profitable mail-order business. Ames British Foods ships food and drinks all across the Midwest and the nation.

To get the authentic food from the United Kingdom, they have to purchase them sent from importers, who sell these items wholesale and ship them in twice a month. The major importers for items like this are located in California, Florida and the northeastern states, but they are attempting to start buying more local foods.

“I’m trying to start buying more of this stuff, the meats especially, locally,” Johnson said. “The Cornish pastie for example: There’s a company in Wisconsin that makes something very, very similar to that, so we’re trying to transition over and buy that. One of our biggest sellers in sausages, the ‘British Banger,’ a sausage made with my own recipe, is made by a local locker in Carol, Iowa. Bacon is another big seller we have. British or Irish bacon is cut from a different part of the animal, it’s cut from the loin rather than the belly. … So since this is Iowa, I thought there is no reason why I can’t get this stuff made locally.”

As with everything in life, there are good things and bad things associated with running a business such as this. Johnson describes one of the biggest problems he has to deal with is juggling his family life with the running of his store.

“The best part of running your own store is the people, the customers,” Johnson said. “They’re awesome; you meet a lot of really, really cool people and hear a lot of good stories. Everyone has got a story. Students will tell stories of their fun travels and study abroads, and warbrides will come in here as well. Warbrides are women who married American service men during the Second World War. They always have fascinating stories to tell.”

The future of this store looks bright.

“We just opened The Chip Shop on South Duff, an authentic British and Irish style fish and chips. What I would like to do is bring that downtown, mix it in with business somehow, I don’t know how yet,” Johnson said. “Just so we can have our fish and chips location downtown since I don’t really like it being way out there, but that’s my long term-goal for this place.”