The Modern Packet Has A Few Names Behind It
Maynards had built up a portfolio of 140 retail sweet shops before that shop estate was sold in 1985, and the company itself was acquired by Cadbury in 1988. After Cadbury took it on, Maynards was merged operationally with Bassett's and Trebor in 1990, with manufacturing for the three brands consolidated in Sheffield in 1991. Cadbury later became part of Mondelez International, originally Kraft Foods, in 2010, which is how Maynards eventually sits within a much larger confectionery world than its name might suggest. That is the practical reason the packet now reads Maynards Bassetts rather than simply Maynards. It is not one tidy family tree so much as a British sweet drawer after three generations: everything familiar is still there, but the labels have been rearranged.
Before The Mergers, There Was Stamford Hill
The Maynards story itself begins in 1880, when Charles Riley Maynard and his brother Tom began making sweets in their kitchen in Stamford Hill, Hackney, London. Charles's wife, Sarah Ann Maynard, ran an adjacent sweet shop selling their products to the local community, which feels about right for proper sweet history: less boardroom strategy, more people coming in with pennies and leaving with something chewy. The brothers formally incorporated the Maynards sweet company in 1896. By 1906, Maynards had opened a purpose-built factory on Vale Road in Harringay. Some accounts note local water access and transport links as part of that factory story, though the more important point is simpler: a kitchen operation had grown into a serious north London sweet-making business.
Wine Gums, Teetotal Worries And The Maynards Character
Maynards is most closely tied to Wine Gums, introduced in 1909 and associated with Charles Gordon Maynard, Charles Riley Maynard's son. The famous bit of family drama is that Charles Riley, a strict Methodist and teetotaller, reportedly needed persuading that these wine-named sweets did not contain alcohol. That small argument says quite a lot about British confectionery. We enjoy making sweets that sound vaguely unsuitable, then reassuring everyone that it is all perfectly respectable. The wine names on Maynards Wine Gums became part of the brand's identity, even though these Easter chicks are a different seasonal product. The shared thread is the Maynards habit of making sweets that feel a bit theatrical without needing to explain themselves too much.
Where Bassett's Fits Into The Bag
The Bassett's name brings its own deep association with British sugar confectionery, especially in the world of liquorice and jelly sweets, but for this product the important thing is the modern combined identity. In 2016, Mondelez brought the Maynards and Bassett's names together under the Maynards Bassetts brand. That explains why shoppers now see both names on packets that feel broadly familiar from British shelves. It can be slightly confusing if you remember the older brands separately, but British groceries have always been good at this sort of thing. A sweet you knew under one name gets folded into another, the packet changes, and everyone carries on pretending they are not emotionally attached to a bag of jelly shapes.
Why They Still Travel Well
For British expats in Canada, a bag like Maynards Bassetts Jelly Babies Chicks is less about grand heritage and more about recognition. It belongs to the same world as corner-shop pick-and-mix, Easter shelves in supermarkets, grandparents producing sweets from a cupboard that seemed to have no bottom, and parcels from home padded out with things you did not know you missed until they arrived. Seasonal British sweets have a particular sort of power because they mark the calendar in small, edible ways. You do not need a corporate timeline to understand why someone in Halifax might spot a familiar Easter bag and immediately think of school holidays, foil eggs, and a relative insisting they were “only getting a few bits in.” The Great British Shop will leave that memory safely wrapped, as it should be.
