Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Miniatures Dispenser Machine

A timeless classic we probably all had as kids is still in production – the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Miniatures Dispenser Machine.

Yes, it’s the money box that gives something back – chocolate.  Once upon a time, this machine took a penny. Then it went up to 2p and slowly but surely made it to the current price of a piece of chocolate, which is 10p. I’ll be honest, that seems a bit pricey for a small miniature in light of the price of a box of Celebrations these days. But you aren’t actually buying any chocolate.

No, this machine is designed to help you save up, with the small Cadbury’s treat just there to soften the blow when you part with your hard-earned cash. And let’s be honest, you aren’t really parting with it. Just a click and you have access to all that lovely cash.

How much? Well, if you empty the entire machine of its chocolate supplies, the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Miniatures Dispenser will be holding £8. If you have done the maths you will work out that it holds up to 80 of the little blocks, which is, coincidentally, the number of mini bars that come with this machine.

Now, the mixed news on the machine’s availability. This one comes and goes from the Cadbury’s store quite often, so it’s a case of looking out for it on there. They tend to be more plentiful in the run-up to Christmas for obvious reasons and when they were last in stock at the Cadbury’s gift site, the 25cm tall machine was selling for £13 complete with the 80 mini chocolate bars.

But it does go out of stock for long periods and as I write, the mini bars of chocolate are hard to find too. A seller was recently selling a pack of refill miniature bars for a hefty £40 on eBay, with the sell-by date of 2013 meaning they weren’t even for eating. Another retailer has them for £27, but they are currently down as out of stock.

That’s pretty much where we are at with the Dairy Milk miniatures right now. They have become collector’s items due to them not being available for something like eight years.

There is one retailer selling replacement bars for the machine that isn’t Cadbury’s that will at least keep your machine happy, if not your taste buds. Actually, the latter might not be true – I haven’t tried the replacement chocolate. It might be ok, it might not be. There were replacement machines at one point too, but I can’t see any around right now.

So here’s the bottom line. You cannot, at this moment, get the Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Miniature Dispenser and you can only get non-Cadbury’s chocolate to go into existing machines.

So if you want a machine, you are looking at secondhand right now. Some nice examples do come up on eBay, but they are rarely boxed and they do sell for a premium considering they are used money boxes. But if you want one for yourself then you might want to go down that road.

Failing that, keep checking the Cadbury’s website. I do that regularly, so as soon as I see it, you’ll be one of the first to know.