Collecting Pennies Before They’re Gone

The penny is disappearing faster than retailers can cope, but the day after Halloween, I did my part to help out a local grocery chain. 

Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle Inc. was offering to exchange customers’ pennies for gift cards worth twice the total amount of the pennies they redeemed. So, $100 worth of pennies (the max customers could bring in) would net a $200 gift card.  

It is not the first retailer to take steps to manage the impending penny shortage. According to one news report, Kroger has posted signs asking shoppers to pay with exact change. Convenience store chain Sheetz was offering sodas to customers who brought in 100 pennies, according to the Associated Press.  

So, my wife and I spent part of the morning going through change banks, jars, and cushions to gather up as many pennies as possible.  

Giant Eagle announced its promotion on October 28, and it received plenty of local news coverage. It has more than 200 stores in western Pennsylvania, north Central Ohio, northern West Virginia, Maryland, and Indiana.  
At my local store, a steady line of people – mostly middle-aged and over – waited with boxes, jars, and bags of pennies to be redeemed. No kids showed up to redeem their piggy banks.  

Ahead of me, another penny redeemer asked the clerk why Giant Eagle was doing this. The clerk said the store wanted to avoid being in the position of rounding up or down when it came to purchases or giving out change, because she said it is “highly against the law.” 

It turns out that stores could run afoul of the Supplemental Nutrition Program’s equal treatment provisions that would prevent rounding against or in favor of SNAP recipients, according to a letter from several trade groups representing retailers.  

The store dedicated one cash register and three staffers to the penny drive. Participants would hand their penny containers to the clerks, who would then dump them into plastic cups and weigh them, just like produce at the register. Once the amount was determined, they would load that onto a gift card.  

Some customers would receive gift cards and then head into the store to do shopping. At least one brought all his change and took his nickels, dimes, and quarters over to a Coinstar kiosk to redeem them as well.  

I asked if it had been busy all day, and they said busy was an understatement. One of the team of three weighing pennies said that all the collected pennies would stay at that store, although I imagine some sharing of the penny resources may occur over time.

After going through several change jars and banks, we had 4 pounds and 2.7 ounces of pennies.  

The U.S. Mint says a penny weighs .088 ounces. So, that meant I had about 758 pennies, or about $7.58. That translated into a $15.16 Giant Eagle gift card.  

My gift card was just a small portion of the total. According to CBS News, customers brought in over 100 million pennies and received more than $200 million in gift cards.  ​

Ben Jackson is the Chief Operating Officer of the Innovative Payments Association, a leading trade association representing companies in payments. With over two decades of industry experience, Ben is dedicated to providing valuable information, advocacy, and support to help members improve financial outcomes for consumers, businesses, and government agencies.