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

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 2012

Girl Scout Cookies 2012, It’s Girl Scout cookie time and Girl Scouts everywhere are asking, “What can a cookie do?” Troops in Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Council will find out as they begin selling eight varieties of delicious Girl Scout cookies, including the newest addition to the cookie line up – “Savannah Smiles” beginning Saturday, January 14.

The program runs through March 25. Troops will deliver cookies, and take additional orders February 27 – March 25. Cookie booths will open beginning Friday, March 2 and end March 25.

This year’s new cookie, “Savannah Smiles,” was whipped up to commemorate the Girl Scouts 100th anniversary, which is officially March 12, 2012. It’s a crisp lemon wedge cookie, dusted with powdered sugar and bursting with zesty flavor. Its name is a nod to Savannah, Georgia, the birthplace of Girl Scouts Founder Juliette Gordon Low, and a reminder to smile as you enjoy these lemony treats. Cookie favorites Thin Mints, Samoas, Trefoils, DoSiDos, Tagalongs, Thank U Berry Munchs, and Dulce de Leches round out the eight varieties. Cookies are $3.50 a box, and $42 for a case.

The theme of this year’s cookie program is: “What can a cookie do? – More than you can see!” It reminds girls that they have the power to do anything they set their minds to.

Customers will have the power to find nearby cookie booths with help from the Official Girl Scouts of USA Cookie Locator app again this year. Introduced last cookie season, the free app helps iPhone and Android users locate cookie booths throughout the council’s 30-counties. The app uses the smartphone’s GPS to read a customer’s location and show nearby cookie sales. The app also offers cookie sale data from around the country, including the start and end of local cookie seasons to specific locations of sales. Users can cast their vote for their favorite cookies, too, and post their picks on Facebook and Twitter, among other interactive features.

With every cookie purchase, more than half of the proceeds stay in the local Girl Scout council to help provide resources needed to support Girl Scouting within Ohio’s Heartland Council. Another portion goes directly to the Girl Scout troop. An additional portion also goes directly to the baker to pay for the cookies. The council does not donate money to any other organization.

Cookie lovers can also buy the council’s special centennial cookie cookbook — Cookie Creations: Celebrating 100 Years of Girl Scouting. Full-color and spiral-bound, it includes more than 100 recipes featuring Girl Scout cookies. The cookbooks will be available exclusively at the council’s five resources, which are located in Columbus, Chillicothe, Marion, Mansfield and Zanesville. Visit www.gsooh.org for more details.

Ohio’s Heartland Council will keep the Girl Scouts’ 100th anniversary celebration going, as it hosts Girl Scouts of Ohio’s Heartland Forever Green Centennial Celebration beginning at 6 p.m. March 2, 2012 at The Ohio State University’s Archie Griffin Ballroom. For more information about the evening cocktail reception and dinner event, email Andrea Biada at abiada@gsoh.org or call 614-487-8101 or 800-621-7042.

Girl Scout Cookies

Girl 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.