Colonial goods store

During the nineteenth century, they formed a distinct category of retailer in much of Europe, specializing in imported, non-perishable dry goods like coffee, tea, spices, rice, sugar, cocoa and chocolate, and tobacco.

In Britain, Home and Colonial Stores became a major retail chain.

By the end of the twentieth century, the term had largely fallen out of use, while the items in which colonial goods retailers had specialized had long since been included in the wider range of goods offered by general purpose supermarkets.

[4] Germany's largest (in 2014) supermarket group, Edeka, preserved the word in its full name, Einkaufsgenossenschaft der Kolonialwarenhändler im Halleschen Torbezirk zu Berlin.

A public art exhibit in London in 2016 used the empire shops as a way of thinking about postcolonialism and globalization.