When do girl scouts sell cookies

When you sell Girl Scout Cookies, you're doing more than helping your customers stock up on delicious treats and having lots of fun.

You're doing it with a goal in mind—a goal to power new, unique, and amazing experiences for yourself and your troop all year long! But did you know that you're also part of something even bigger—something thousands of awesome girls nationwide who are just like you are part of too? Having the opportunity to run your very own cookie business gives you skills essential for success today and in the future:. Goal Setting. Decision Making. Money Management. What is going on? The recorded history of Girl Scout cookies dates back to — five years after the organization was founded — when a troop of Girl Scouts in Muskogee, Oklahoma, held a cookie sale in their high school cafeteria as a way to fund troop activities.

But the original cookies were home-baked, just regular cookie-cookies. Word spread; a troop in Connecticut started selling, and then a troop in Massachusetts. In July , the American Girl magazine published a recipe for basic sugar cookies, intended for troop sales.

Ingredients cost between 26 and 36 cents and would yield six or seven dozen cookies, which, the publication suggested, could be sold door to door for 25 to 30 cents per dozen. As Atlas Obscura points out , the simplicity was important since the scouts were baking the cookies themselves.

But even back in the bootstrapping olden days, older and savvier relatives may have been involved. Two years later, the national Girl Scout organization switched to commercial bakers, and that was the end of the Girl Scout baking era.

Not all cookies have been lasting hits. Shortbread also known as Trefoils and Thin Mints are enduring classics. Other cookies have been lost to time. Golden Yangles, an experimental cheese cracker, was excised from the lineup in Are the cookies the same? In spirit, yes. In reality, 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 — a Thin Mint is always a Thin Mint — taste different depending on who makes them. Some cookies, meanwhile, are only available through one baker or the other.

Each baker, a Girl Scout spokesperson told the Washington Post , can offer up to eight varieties; as new cookies come, old cookies go. And so one might imagine that this would somehow inform which cookies are sold where. But this would be a mistake. How big is the cookie business? For the rest of the cookie market, Girl Scout cookie season is an inevitable fact of life. Because each regional council sets its own prices, the cost of a box of cookies depends on the realities of your local market.

The proceeds are split between the council — which funds things like summer camps and adult volunteer trainings , as well as coveted cookie-selling prizes — and the particular troop, where it goes toward activities and projects. Making these decisions as a group is an important part of the process. Managing inventory is important.

The logistics of ordering cookie stock — taking preorders versus buying cookies in advance to have ready on the spot — is a science and an art. There are door-to-door sales. There are booth sales, where troops set up cookie pop-ups at well-traversed locations.

Would you like to find a booth near you? The Girl Scouts have an app for that. Is the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies tax-deductible? If the customer keeps the cookies, then no. Individuals who buy Girl Scout Cookies and take the cookies home or consume them have purchased a product at a fair market value. Cookie Share customers can treat the purchase price of the donated cookies as a charitable contribution. Does any part of the cookie revenue go to support organizations other than Girl Scouts?

None of the money from any Girl Scout council-sponsored cookie program is given to any other group. All of the revenue — every penny after paying for the cookies — from all Cookie Program activities supports the local Girl Scout where the cookies are sold, including a portion that goes directly to the troop selling cookies.

The purpose of selling cookies is to help girls develop a wide range of skills and to generate revenue to support Girl Scouting locally. No money is given to any organization other than Girl Scouts. Find more facts about Girl Scout Cookies with this flyer.

Who bakes Girl Scout Cookies? Who selects the cookie varieties? The national Girl Scout organization reviews and approves all varieties proposed by the bakers. Any of the five optional cookies can be changed every year. Each bakery names its own cookies, so Girl Scout Cookies that are quite similar may have different names. Suggestions for new cookies are welcome, but the national Girl Scout organization can make no promise to use them.

What are the sizes, quantities and prices of Girl Scout Cookies? Girl Scout Cookies are sold by weight, not by size or number. The number and size of cookies may vary by variety. Girl Scouts of the USA monitors the weights of the cookies, which are set by contract.

Every Girl Scout council has the right to set its own price based on its needs and knowledge of the local market. What are the best-selling Girl Scout Cookies? Where can I find recipes using Girl Scout Cookies? Check out the website of our licensed baker: www.

Are any preservatives used in Girl Scout Cookies? Girl Scout Cookies do not contain preservatives.