The £5 Pick-and-Mix Triathlon: Traditional Counter v Supermarket v Online in 2026
Photo: Mark Anderson , CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Picture the scene: a crisp £5 note, a paper bag, and the quiet confidence of someone who once bought a quarter of sherbet lemons for tuppence. In 2026, that confidence lasts roughly four seconds. The fiver still exists, but it no longer behaves like a fiver. So we did what any sensible snack desk would do: turned it into a triathlon.
The Rules of the Fiver Bag Draft
Three counters entered: a traditional sweet shop, a supermarket pick-and-mix stand and an online letterbox pouch. Each got the same £5, no top-ups and no sneaky debit card. The bag had to be shareable, contain at least five textures, include one properly nostalgic sweet and one sour thing that makes a child pull a face. The Maoam family panel scored taste, value and general bag joy. The dog was excluded after an incident involving a stray foam banana.
Counter One: The Traditional Sweet Shop
At our local proper counter, the sweets were £1.80 per 100g. Five quid bought 277g, which sounds generous until you remember that 277g of cola bottles is basically three generous handfuls and a memory. The experience, though, was excellent: paper bag, metal tongs, a shopkeeper who called us 'love' and a faint smell of aniseed. We chose cola bottles, foam bananas, fizzy blue raspberry belts and chocolate mice.
The taste test was strong. Cola bottles scored 8/10 for chew and nostalgia, foam bananas 7.5 for squish, and the blue belts 7 for making everyone wince in a festive way. The panel verdict was blunt: 'It feels like a treat, not a transaction.' The downside is volume. By 4pm, the bag was a distant memory and a faint sugar haze.
Counter Two: The Supermarket Pick-and-Mix Stand
The supermarket stand was £1.20 per 100g, so the same £5 bought 416g. That is a serious bag. It came in a plastic tub, with tongs that had seen things, and a faint dusting of stray sugar at the bottom. We chose white mice, jelly babies, chocolate raisins and strawberry laces. It was not glamorous, but it was efficient.
Taste-wise, the jelly babies were the surprise winner at 8/10, the white mice 7/10 and the chocolate raisins 7/10. The grandparent on the panel said, 'It is not Woolworths, but it is close.' That is practically a five-star review in this family. Value score: excellent. Atmosphere score: slightly like a train station kiosk at 6am. Overall, the supermarket won on sheer bag weight.
Counter Three: The Online Sweet Shop
The online option was a letterbox pick-and-mix pouch at £4.99 delivered, containing 180g. That means our fiver bought less than half the supermarket haul, but the pouch had charm and arrived with a tiny sticker. We chose sherbet lemons, liquorice and bonbons because that is the sort of bag that says 'I have opinions about boiled sweets and I am not afraid to share them.'
The sherbet lemons scored 8.5/10, the liquorice 7/10 and the bonbons 7.5/10. The panel loved the specificity: this was the only counter where we could build a genuinely old-school bag without rummaging past a wall of rainbow fizz. The catch is the wait. Two days of staring at the doormat is not the same as standing at a counter with a paper bag.
The Taste Test Panel Scores
| Venue | Weight for £5 | Taste score | Value score | Bag joy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional counter | 277g | 8.7/10 | 6.5/10 | 9/10 |
| Supermarket stand | 416g | 7.4/10 | 9.1/10 | 7.5/10 |
| Online pouch | 180g | 8.2/10 | 6.8/10 | 8/10 |
The traditional counter won on joy, the supermarket won on volume and the online pouch won on very specific nostalgia. Nobody won on price, because 2026 has made sure of that.
The Best Fiver Bag in 2026
If you have exactly £5 and a family to please, the supermarket stand is the pragmatic champion. Build the bag like this: 40% foam sweets, 30% sour, 20% chocolate and 10% wildcard. Include cola bottles, white mice and something chewy. Skip hard boiled sweets if small children are involved, and include liquorice only if you enjoy starting a debate at the dinner table.
If the goal is a treat rather than a ration pack, go traditional. Buy fewer sweets, choose better ones and accept that the paper bag is part of the experience. If you are chasing a exact childhood sweet that no longer appears in supermarkets, go online. Just budget for postage and a small amount of doormat-based impatience.
Regional Price Wiggles
Traditional counters are all over the place in 2026. We saw £2.20 per 100g in London, £1.75 in Cardiff, £1.80 in Glasgow and £1.60 in a rural shop that also sold mousetraps. Supermarket stands hovered between £1.00 and £1.50 per 100g. Online pouches sat at £1.80 to £2.50 per 100g before delivery, unless you find a letterbox deal. The lesson: the fiver travels further outside the big cities, but the paper bag is usually worth the extra.
Over to You
We want your fiver bag. What would you put in it? Are you team cola bottles, team foam bananas or team 'I only came in for liquorice and left with a bag of fizzy belts'? Send us your best £5 pick-and-mix build and we will test the most convincing ones. The triathlon may be over, but the argument is only just getting started.
