Penny Pinchers: Penny Shortage Hits Retailers
Retailers are use to shortages, product, packaging, and now the pennies. Local armored truck services have informed some operators the Federal Reserve branch that supplies the region is completely out, and won’t be replenishing. A small detail, but as anyone who has ever worked a register knows, pennies keep the whole machine balanced. Missing them in a cash heavy industry is like smiling with missing teeth.
Piggy Bank
The government has stopped making new pennies. United States Mint (the Mint) struck its final one-cent coins for circulation in 2025 — after a 232-year run. Why? Producing pennies costs more than they’re worth. In 2024 it cost about 3.69 cents to mint a one-cent coin. With no fresh pennies coming in and many of the existing ones sitting idle in jars, coin jars, drawers, or just in wallets, circulation has dropped. People aren’t spending them. That means banks and retailers have to rely on “recycled” pennies — and there simply aren’t enough in active flow to meet normal demand.
POS-SOS
While your favorite POS companies like BioTrack, Dutchie, and Cova weren’t built with a disappearing currency in mind. Some are scrambling to adjust to make the change situation make cents. At MJBizCon, the hunt for answers turned into an impromptu stress test for the major POS systems.
Can BioTrack Core eliminate pennies from totals altogether?” According to Shirley Vasta, not yet, but ticket escalated. Dutchie claimed they already have rounding tools built into their platform and even referenced a how-to video. Blaze acted blindsided, unprepared for a penny-free future. LeafNet at least understood the problem and signaled they could adjust custom price rules if needed.
Spare Change
While a clean workaround doesn’t exist for everyone, it does leave room for a little creativity. Some operators are manually rounding — a nickel here, a nickel there — but that routine burns out fast. Nothing kills a night like a Z-out that has to be brute forced because every budtender rounded differently.
Others are drifting toward cashless debit ATMs (learn more about those later, and how to make money back), letting the machines solve the problem humans keep creating. And as for the missing pennies, toss it onto the growing pile of “by the ways” this industry collects — its starting over flow.
