15 Facts You Didn't Know About Girl Scout Cookies
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Each year the Thin Mint persists as the best selling Girl Scout Cookie. (Daniella Segura / Neon Tommy).
- Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of Girl Scouts of the USA, initiated the idea of using cookie sales for a way for Girl Scouts to raise money to fund their own activities.
- The sale of Girl Scout Cookies to fund Girl Scout activities began as early as 1917.
- During the 1920s and 1930s, Girl Scout troops baked their own cookies with their mothers. They baked simple sugar cookies and packaged them in wax paper bags, put a sticker on them and sold them door to door for 25 to 35 cents per dozen.
- You can still find the recipe for the sugar cookie from circa 1922 on the Girl Scouts website.
- You can also find recipes for select cookies online at the Little Brownies Bakers and ABC Mart Cookies' websites, both of which bake Girl Scout Cookies.
- During the 1940s, Girl Scout Cookies were sold around the country. However, when World War II began, and there was a shortage of sugar, flour and butter, Girl Scouts began selling calendars instead. After the war ended, cookie sales picked up once again.
- Each year, during peak baking periods, Little Brownie Bakers, which has been baking Girl Scout Cookies for over 35 years, bakes over 4.5 million Thin Mints per day.
- Also, during peak baking production, Little Brownie Bakers goes through 1,050,000 pounds of flour, 300,000 pounds of shortening, 50,000 pounds of cocoa, 500,000 pounds of chocolate coating, 650,000 pounds of sugar, 230,000 pounds of peanut butter and 75,000 pounds of toasted coconut.
- There’s a way to make the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies tax deductible. However, you cannot take the cookies home but instead must leave the cookies with the Girl Scouts as a donation.
- There is now a free Cookie Finder mobile app for your smartphone, which allows you to use your phone’s GPS or to enter your city and state to find where cookies are being sold near you.
- You cannot buy Girl Scout Cookies online, and, according the Girl Scout website, “Cookies found for sale online at auction and community list sites should not be purchased under any circumstances…”
- Thin Mints are the best selling Girl Scout Cookie.
- There are four vegan Girl Scout Cookies: Thin Mints, Thanks-A-Lot, Lemonades and Peanut Butter Patties.
- In 2008, a 15-year-old girl from Michigan, Jennifer Sharpe, sold 17,328 boxes of Girl Scout Cookies, which is possibly the national record; however, Girl Scouts of the USA does not track individual sales.
- During each Girl Scout Cookie season, Girl Scouts sell nearly 200 million packages of cookies.
