During my last visit to Tesco's, I found myself drawn to a massive bin they had put out at the end of one of their aisles. This bin contained bumper bags of sweeties - big plastic bags in different colours containing 240g of sweeties for only 84p each. Marked on each bag it said "an assortment of children's favourite sweets." I picked the yellow bag and popped it into my trolley.

The bag of sweets I purchased came with several varieties of sweeties including Parma Violets. Parma Violets contain no artificial colours, which is hard to believe when you look at these lavender sweeties. They come in a purple wrapping and are made by Swizzels.

I think with Parma Violets, either you love them or you hate them. I place myself firmly into the "haters" camp with these things. They smell like something you might clean the toilet with rather than a sweetie. And they taste even worse than they smell.

It seems that violets as a flavour goes back to Victorian times when it was popular to eat desserts made out of flowers. But these violets taste so artificial that any charm the concept of eating flowers may have has is lost.

However, if you are someone who enjoys Parma Violets and other sweeties of this type, or if you are expecting loads of trick or treaters at Halloween, the Bumper Bags now being sold at Tesco containing Parma Violets could be an excellent bargain.