Ask anyone under thirty how much a "penny sweet" actually costs, and the honest answer is: nothing close to a penny. The name is a fossil from a pricing system that stopped existing over fifty years ago, and it's a genuinely odd bit of language to have survived that long unchanged.
Where the name actually comes from
Before decimalisation in 1971, corner shops and sweet shops routinely sold individual sweets from open jars at a genuine one-penny-each price point — a real transaction, not a figure of speech. Children would come in with actual pocket money, ask for a specific number of pennies' worth, and an assistant would count or weigh sweets out by hand from jars behind the counter.
Decimalisation changed the currency overnight, but the phrase had already become a category name rather than a literal price by the time inflation caught up with it. "Penny sweets" kept meaning "small, cheap, individually sold sweets" long after individual sweets stopped costing anything close to a penny — the same way "five and dime" survived in American English well past the point where anything cost a nickel or a dime.
What actually changed at the counter
The bigger shift wasn't pricing — it was handling. The classic image of an assistant scooping loose sweets from an open jar with bare hands or a metal scoop has largely given way to sealed, pre-weighed formats: individually wrapped pieces, small multipacks, and pick 'n' mix stations where customers use tongs rather than touching sweets directly. Hygiene expectations moved on, and self-service retail made pre-packed formats more practical to stock and sell than a jar needing constant staff attention.
Pick 'n' mix, in something close to its original spirit, has survived this shift better than the plain penny counter did — customers still serve themselves from open bins, just with tongs and bags rather than a member of staff and loose change.
What a pocket money sweet looks like today
The category survives as small, individually priced or cheaply multipacked items aimed at small spending amounts rather than big shops — tubs of individual lollies, small novelty multipacks, and single wrapped chews sold by the piece or in cases of a dozen or more rather than by the kilo. The format has changed — wrapped and pre-packed instead of loose and scooped — but the underlying idea of an affordable, individually-bought treat hasn't moved much at all.
Where to find it
Our Pocket Money collection is built around that same original idea, just in a modern, individually wrapped format — small items, sold in cases, priced for exactly the kind of small, individual purchase the penny counter was built around in the first place.
Frequently asked questions
Why are they still called penny sweets?
The name dates from before 1971, when individual sweets genuinely cost a penny each. The price changed with decimalisation; the name didn't.
What changed about how they're sold?
The loose, hand-scooped jar counter has largely given way to sealed, pre-packed formats — wrapped pieces and multipacks rather than bare-handled loose sweets.
What counts as a pocket money sweet today?
Small, individually priced or cheaply multipacked items aimed at small spending amounts — wrapped chews, small lollies and novelty pieces sold by the piece or in modest multipacks.