Archive for: girl scout cookies
Girl Scout cookies are one food that I’ve never had leftovers of – whether they were homemade or purchased from a local Girl Scout. The cookies are simply too tasty to become leftovers in my house, and they freeze very well so it is easy to tuck them away for long term storage. But local Girl Scout Councils themselves often have leftover Girl Scout cookies that are unsold at the end of cookie season. The Councils order huge quantities of cookies for the local Scout troops to sell and try to project how many cookies they’ll need for the season based on sales the previous year. Sometimes, these estimates are off and they will run out of popular cookies. Other times, Councils may end up with thousands of boxes of unsold product.
CBS in Los Angeles recently discovered that more than a few of these leftover cookies were being disposed of at a local landfill, and had video of workers destroying some 13,200 excess boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. The cookies were tracked back to the Council that ordered them, who said that the bakery that supplies them with their cookies – ABC Bakery – allows them to return up to 1% of all the cookies they buy without paying for them when they have ordered too many in a given year. These cookies were the ones that the Council had returned to the bakery, which did not directly return CBS’s response for comment on the issue.
There are two bakeries that produce GS cookies – Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakery – and this incident has raised questions about what is being done and what should be done with unsold cookies. Over-ordering does happen because it’s impossible to project what demand will be perfectly, so this question is likely to come up again and again. The Southern California Girl Scout Council in question assured reporters that they donate tens of thousands of boxes to local charities and food banks, that the cookies being destroyed were just those that they had returned. There appears to be no official policy with what is to be done with excess Girl Scout Cookies at the moment, but it sounds like the Girl Scouts will soon be coming out with one, as there is clearly a need for Councils and the bakeries that produce the cookies to be able to dispose of extra cookies in a way that represents the Girl Scouts well. Hopefully, it is one where the extra cookies will end up going to good use and not ending up in a landfill.
The food truck trend hasn’t been showing any signs of slowing down and people still love to be able to hunt down a delicious, inexpensive meal from a mobile restaurant during the day. In honor of National Girl Scout Cookie Day, Girl Scouts are joining in by launching their own Girl Scout Cookie Truck in New York City. The truck will only be out and about today, and it will be making four stops (although it will probably pull over if you flag it down): 42nd Street and Madison Avenue from 8:30 and 10:30 am; 57th between Fifth and Sixth Avenues from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm; Park Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets from 2:30 – 4:30 pm; and on Amsterdam Avenue between 71st and 72nd streets from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. The truck will be staffed with scouts selling cookies, of course. Unlike most cookie sales, however, the truck will also be giving out samples of some of these much-loved cookies, so you can grab one of your favorites without buying a whole box or try something new that you wouldn’t otherwise buy.
Unfortunately, New York is the only city that will be seeing a real Girl Scout Cookie truck this season, and unless some dedicated scout moms want to go out and get decals for their own cars to build their own version for local deliveries, the rest of us will just have to wait and see if it is a success and if they decide to venture a little further in their truck next season.
Girl Scout cookies are a once-a-year treat that many people look forward to, both because everyone has their favorite cookie and because sales support local girl scouts. Most of the cookies are staples in the line-up and have been around for years – Thin Mints, Trefoils and Samoas, just to name a few – but other cookies have come and gone over the years as trends and tastes change. This year’s line-up includes a new cookie: Mango Cremes with Nutrifusion. The cookies will have vanilla and coconut cookies sandwiching a mango-flavored creme filling. The name sounds like a mouthful and that is because Nutrifusion is the name of a vitamin additive that will give the cookies – according to the Girl Scouts’ material on them – “all the nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes, and strawberries.”
The cookie flavor itself sounds very tasty, but marketing the cookies as “a delicious new way to get your vitamins” seems like a questionable marketing angle for a cookie. One serving of Mango Creme cookies is three cookies. That one serving includes 15% RDI of Vitamin B1 and 5% RDI of Vitamins A, C, D, E, and B6. It also includes 8 grams of fat, including 20% of your daily recommended saturated fat intake – which is pretty much on-par with the rest of the most popular Girl Scout Cookies (Trefoils, Do-Si-Dos, Savannah Smiles and Thank U Berry Munch cookies all have slightly less). This more or less means that you could eat a piece of fruit, and count those nutrients towards any cookie you might want to eat.
Clearly, the Girl Scout cookie machine is hoping that this health boost will boost sales and only time will tell if nutrients – or simply the promise of a tasty mango and coconut cookie – will prove to be popular with cookie fans this year. Personally, I think that the new flavor would have been enough on its own, since coconut and mango together will always get me to try something at least once.
Girl Scout cookies are a treat that usually only comes into season once a year, when Girl Scouts hit the streets (or markets or churches) for their annual cookie sales. The popular Girl Scout cookie flavors can also be found in a few other forms, including Dreyer’s/Edy’s limited edition ice cream flavors and now in candy bars. The Girl Scouts have recently paired up with Nestle to launch three Girl Scout cookie-inspired candy bars. The candy bars are crossovers with Thin Mints, Caramel & Coconut (Samoas) and Peanut Butter Creme (Tagalongs), sandwiching the cookie filling with layers of thin, crispy wafers and enrobing them in chocolate. I think that they picked good flavors for the candy bar crossovers, not only because these are the most popular flavors, but because they are the most distinctive. You’re much more likely to associate the flavors in the bars with the cookies. And since I don’t think that there are enough coconut and caramel candy bars on the market, I’m definitely up for tasting the Samoas bar when I see one.
If you happen to be a fan of Nestle Crunch on Facebook (you’ve already “liked” Baking Bites on Facebook, right?) , you can actually order these candy bars their their special presale. Otherwise, you’ll have to wait until later this summer to get your hands on them. They’re set to roll out to stores nationwide starting in June. And, if candy bars aren’t your thing, you can always get your Girl Scout cookie fix by baking up a batch of my homemade Girl Scout Cookie recipes in your favorite flavor.
Girl Scout cookies aren’t usually difficult to find, if you’re looking to buy a couple of boxes from your local troop in addition to making them yourself at home. I used to find girls from local troops outside of grocery stores and malls, and while I do see them out there “boothing” cookies from time to time, I have to admit that they are a little more difficult to track down than they once seemed to be.
Fortunately, there’s an app for that.
The Girl Scout Cookie Locator App is a free app that helps you find Girl Scout cookie sales in your neighborhood or close to wherever you are when the craving strikes. The app can either use your phone’s GPS locator to find you, or you can punch in a zip code, city or state to get specific results. It will tell you of upcoming sale dates, times and locations, and the app will allow you to pin them to your calendar so that you won’t forget to stop by. The app also gives you information on the different types of cookies for sale, including their nutritional stats and even some recipe ideas for making fun, simple desserts with the cookies!
The app is relatively new and I suspect that not all troops are on board with it yet, so not every sale date and time may be listed and some areas are definitely more up-to-date than others, but the app is still a good one and well worth using for a Girl Scout cookie fan. Keep driving by the local market and keeping your eyes peeled for other sellers, of course, and don’t forget that you can always fall back on homemade Girl Scout Cookies if all else fails!
