Girl Scout cookies are a triumph: of marketing, of cookie-baking, of youthful entrepreneurship. They are beloved like apple pie is beloved, or puppies. But unlike most fundraising efforts
– National Public Radio, for example, or elementary school wrapping paper sales
– Girl Scout Cookies are beloved.
The basic facts of Girl Scout cookies
Girl Scouts is an organization for girls ages 5 through 18, organized by age group and visually recognizable by color-coded uniforms
- Combines life skills, STEM, the outdoors, and entrepreneurship with civic engagement to deliver crucial, life-changing, girl-led programming
- Each Girl Scout council conducts a single cookie sale annually
Girl Scout cookies are an $800 million business
During prime cookie season, the nation’s Girl Scouts do about $800M in total cookie sales
- The staggering sales make the cookie program the largest financial investment in girls annually in the United States
- Each regional council sets its own prices, so the cost of a box of cookies depends on the realities of the local market
- All of the net revenue stays within a Girl Scout council’s local area to benefit girls and their council
- Proceeds go to council-sponsored programs, events, properties, training, and scholarships
- 24 percent goes to cost of the cookies
- 23% goes to troop proceeds, girl recognitions, and service unit bonuses
It’s not just about the cookies
The Girl Scouts’ official materials credit cookie sales for instilling girls with five essential skills: goal-setting, decision-making, money management, people skills, and business ethics.
- Girl Scouts going door to door teaches girls how to resist the temptation to embezzle and to set realistic goals, and to take responsibility for her work. The girls have to be the ones doing the selling.
Toward a History of Girl Scout Cookies
Girl Scout cookies date back to 1917, when a troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma held a cookie sale to fund troop activities.
- The original cookies were home-baked, just regular cookie-cookies.
- In 1922, American Girl magazine published a recipe for basic sugar cookies, intended for troop sales.
- In 1934, the Girl Scouts of Greater Philadelphia Council sold the first commercially baked version of cookies, and in 1939, Girl Scouts introduced the first-ever iteration of the Thin Mint cookies, then called “Cooky-Mints.”
- By 1951, the basic cookie lineup had been finalized: a sandwich cookie, a shortbread cookie, and a Thin Mint/Thin Mints/Chocolate Mint variety, which is still the No. 1 best-seller.
Girl Scout Cookies are a Comforting Tradition
People love Girl Scout cookies because they are simple and pure.
- They remind you of childhood, how you once were a Girl Scout, or knew a Girl Girl, or ate cookies.
- They are also pleasantly limited because they only come around once a year.
- A big part of the appeal is civic-minded: People want to support the girls themselves.
Which cookies you get – and what those cookies taste like – depends on where you live
Girl Scout cookies are produced by two bakeries: ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers
- Near-identical cookies have different names
- There are slight variations in the recipes, apparent on the nutritional panel and also by looking at it
- Even cookies that go by the same name nationwide taste different depending on who makes them
- Each regional council chooses which baker to contract with
