Top

Girl Scout Cookies

March 12, 2012 by · Comments Off on Girl Scout Cookies 

Girl Scout Cookies, It’s a cookie; it’s a cause; it’s an annual sale and a 100th anniversary celebration.

Yes, it was Girl Scout cookie season and, the good news is, it still is.

Those who pre-ordered cookies on Staten Island are receiving their orders.

“The girls don’t really go door-to-door anymore. Most of them sell them through family and friends networking,” said Joan Ventriglia, Staten Island membership manager, Girl Scout Council of Greater New York.

However, if you were not approached by a Girl Scout or her helpful parent to order cookies, some alternatives are available for your annual fix of Thin Mints or Tag-a-longs.

From tomorrow to May 3, Girl Scout cookies will again be sold locally on a cash-and-carry basis — $4 a box — at a pop-up shop and at booth sales.

The pop-up shop can be found at the Staten Island Girl Scouts Service Center at 613 Midland Ave. Staff will be selling cookies Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Wednesday from noon to 4 p.m.

Booth sales are organized by troops and are held at supporting retail locations on the weekends.

Locations of booth sales are available online at girlscoutcookies.org, where an iphone app is also available for free download.

Last year, New Yorkers distinguished themselves as the top users of the app nationwide, with 31,914 downloads.

A part of American life for at least 80 years, Girl Scout cookie season provokes opinions on all-time favorites, and part of the marketing of the cookies includes providing those favorites while introducing new ones.

The offerings vary across the country according to councils, but every sale is required to include three perennial favorites: Thin Mints, Do-Si-Dos, a peanut butter sandwich; and Trefoil or Shortbread.

Girl Scout Cookies

January 22, 2012 by · Comments Off on Girl Scout Cookies 

Girl Scout Cookies, When the local neighborhood Girl Scout stops by for her annual cookie sales pitch this year, she’s going to be asking for a bit more money. The price of the scouts’ signature snacks, which went on sale last week, has increased by $0.50, from $3.50 to $4.00.

“Everybody that shops at a grocery store knows that the price of basically everything has gone up,” said Janet Maher, a local troop leader, coordinator and trainer for the Girl Scouts. “The same thing is happening to us.”

Denise Eberspeaker, a spokesperson for the Chesapeake Council, said the scouts haven’t increased their prices in eight years, keeping their prices at $3.50 even while most surrounding councils charged $4.

“We kept the price at $3.50 as long as we could,” Eberspeaker said. “But gasoline prices going up and ingredients going up have made that no longer possible.”

More than 9,000 Girl Scouts in the Chesapeake Council, which includes Delaware, the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, sell cookies every year. They sell more than a million boxes annually.

Eberspeaker said the scouts wouldn’t be making much more money from the price increase — almost all of it will go to cover increased costs.

The Girl Scouts aren’t the only snack-makers facing this problem.

Earlier this month, Hostess Brands — maker of Twinkies, Ding Dongs and other famous treats — filed for its second bankruptcy in less than three years. Company officials pointed to increased ingredient costs as one reason for the company’s troubles.

Harry Balzer, an analyst with the NDP Group who follows food and diet trends, said there were additional reasons that Hostess went bankrupt. But he acknowledged that food prices are driving up costs for most snack-makers.

Girl Scout Cookies

January 5, 2012 by · Comments Off on Girl Scout Cookies 

Girl Scout CookiesGirl Scout Cookies, Boxes of Girl Scout cookies are displayed in this file photo. The national organization has unveiled a new Girl Scout cookie, ‘Savannah Smiles,’ to celebrate its 100th anniversary. This year, a new Girl Scout cookie will join the usual lineup of Thin Mints, Samoas, and Do-Si-Dos: In honor of Girl Scouts’ 100th anniversary, the club has unveiled Savannah Smiles, a lemon-wedge shortbread cookie dusted with powdered sugar.

The new treat is named after Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low’s hometown, Savannah, Ga. According to the Girl Scouts website, the new cookie has a strong lemon flavor and recalls Girl Scout cookies of the program’s early years.

“This lemon wedge cookie is cool and crisp, with just the right number of lemon chips to deliver tiny bursts of flavor,” says a press release for Little Brownie Bakers, the company that produces Savannah Smiles and several other Girl Scout cookie varieties, including Samoas and Trefoils. “And, when you hold it right, you’ll quickly be reminded of that world-famous ‘Brownie Smile.’ ”

The Girl Scout cookie program began in 1922, when the Girl Scouts’ American Girl magazine published recipes for simple homemade sugar cookies, suggesting local troupes sell them as a fundraising activity. The organization began licensing recipes out to commercial bakers in 1936. Today, Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers are the two licensed companies.

The Girl Scouts sell an estimated 200 million boxes of cookies per year, at around $3.50 per box. Of the 11 cookies currently available, the most popular are dark chocolate Thin Mints, which make up 25 percent of all sales. Samoas and Tagalongs are the other big sellers, comprising 19 and 13 percent of sales, respectively.

Not all cookie varieties are quite so successful. The Girl Scouts have discontinued scores of cookie varieties during the program’s run, including Aloha Chips (with macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips), Apple Cinnamons, Double Dutch (chocolate cookies with chocolate chips), and the raspberry jam-filled Ice Berry Pi?atas.

Despite Girl Scouts’ efforts to make their cookies healthier (in 2007, several recipes were reworked so that they had zero trans-fat), the health-minded cookie offerings sell terribly. Many sugar-free and 100-calorie cookies have been briefly available, all disappearing quickly. Daisy Go Rounds, a 100-calorie replacement of the retired Cinna-Spins, only lasted two years (2009-2011).

Indeed, Savannah Smiles sound remarkably similar to another discontinued cookie, the Lemon Cooler (lemon-flavored cookies dusted in powdered sugar). But will it buck the trend and have the staying power of more enduring cookies?

You can soon decide for yourself. Most regional Girl Scout troops will begin cookie sales later this month, or in early February. To find a “cookie booth” in your area, visit girlscoutcookies.org. Girl Scouts knows how to move with the times, so you can also download the organizations official “Cookie Finder” app for your smartphone.

Bottom