What sweets were popular in the 1970s?

We have not found reliable sales figures ranking the sweets of the 1970s, so any list of the most popular is partly memory. What the records do show is which sweets and bars arrived in the decade, which were already in the shops, and a few sales figures. Here they are, year by year.

1970: Curly Wurly

Cadbury launched the Curly Wurly in 1970: chocolate coated hard caramel in three flattened, intertwined strands. It was created by David John Parfitt, a research confectioner at Cadbury's Bournville factory, while he was experimenting with some surplus toffee. Since 2010 it has been made in Poland.

1971: Skittles, a British start

Skittles were introduced in 1971 by Jack Candies, a British distributor for Mars. An animated television advert from 1974 carried the logo of the Galaxy company, and production only began in the United States in 1982.

1972: Haribo arrives

The German maker Haribo entered the British sweet market in 1972 by buying Dunhill's of Pontefract, a maker of liquorice Pontefract cakes founded in the 18th century. Haribo still makes Pontefract cakes in the town: see Pontefract cakes

1973: Freddo comes to Britain

Freddo, the chocolate frog, was invented in Australia in 1930 by Harry Melbourne, an 18 year old employee of MacRobertson's, which Cadbury bought in 1967. Freddo was launched in the UK in 1973 at 2p and was turning over £2 million a year by 1974, but it was withdrawn in 1979. It returned in 1994.

1976: a big year for bars

• Yorkie. Rowntree's launched Yorkie in 1976 as a chunkier rival to Cadbury's Dairy Milk, after Eric Nicoli of Rowntree's spotted a gap in the market for a manly chocolate bar.
• Lion. Also from Rowntree's, first made at Fawdon in Newcastle in 1976.
• Double Decker. Cadbury's bar of milk chocolate, nougat with a hint of coffee, and crisp cereal, first introduced in 1976 and named after the double decker bus.
• Pacers. Mars's chewy mints began as Opal Mints, a sister to Opal Fruits, and were relaunched as Pacers around 1976, later with green peppermint stripes: see Pacers

Already in the shops

Several sweets on sale in the 1970s were older. Spangles, square boiled sweets from Mars, had been made since 1950: see Spangles Opal Fruits dated from 1959: see Opal Fruits The bar Americans called Snickers had been sold in Britain since 1968 under the name Marathon. Chewits had been made since 1963, when they were called Chewzits. Cadbury's Aztec, launched in 1967 to take on the Mars bar, lasted until 1978: see the Aztec bar And Mars advertised its Topic bar in the 1970s and 1980s with the line "A Hazelnut in Every Bite".

Popping candy

In America, Pop Rocks popping candy was launched in 1976 and at one point outsold other sweets by as much as ten to one, until safety rumours, including the false story that Pop Rocks and fizzy drinks could make your stomach explode, hit sales. General Foods also made a powdered version, Space Dust: see Space Dust

Gone by the end of the decade

The Aztec ended in 1978 and the first British Freddo in 1979. Others followed soon after: Spangles and the Texan bar in 1984 and Pacers in 1985: see the Texan bar For the next decade, see what sweets were popular in the 1980s?

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