10 Facts About Girl Scout Cookies
Submitted by Cookie Athlete on March 1, 2011 – 12:52 amNo Comment
- Girl Scout Cookies® had their earliest beginnings in the kitchens and ovens of our girl members, with mothers volunteering as technical advisers. The sale of cookies as a way to finance troop activities began as early as 1917, five years after Juliette Gordon Low started Girl Scouting in the United States. The earliest mention of a cookie sale found to date was that of the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, which baked cookies and sold them in its high school cafeteria as a service project in December 1917.
- Girl Scout Cookies were sold annually by local councils around the country until World War II, when sugar, flour, and butter shortages led Girl Scouts to begin selling Girl Scout calendars to raise money for their activities.
- Thin Mints are the biggest seller, making up 25 percent of all sales, followed by Samoas/Caramel deLites at 19 percent; and are the third most popular cookie sold in the United States.
- As of 2005, 71.5 percent of women in the U.S. Senate and 67.1 percent of women in the House of Representatives are Girl Scouts alumnae.
- About 200 million boxes are sold every cookie season; the Girl Scout cookie program has generated about $700 million per year since 1999.
- In 1933, Girl Scouts of Greater Philadelphia Council baked cookies and sold them in the city’s gas and electric company windows. Just 23 cents per box of 44 cookies, or six boxes for $1.24 helped girls develop their marketing and business potential and raise funds for their local Girl Scout council program. In 1934, Greater Philadelphia became the first council to sell commercially baked cookies.
- Jennifer Sharpe, age 15, of Dearborn, Mich., holds the record for most cookies ever sold, with 17,328 boxes in 2008.
- There are two licensed bakers, ABC and Little Brownie, that get to propose and name the cookies that they bake.
- ABC uses palm oil in place of partially hydrogenated oils in order to get to zero grams trans fat per serving for each of our varieties. Palm oil provides the greatest stability so cookies stay fresh and taste better longer. Palm is naturally stable, and does not require hydrogenation. This allows us to lower our trans fat to zero grams per serving.
- Weekly ingredients at Little Brownie Bakers:
- Flour: 21 truckloads, 1,050,000 lbs.
- Shortening: 7 truckloads, 300,000 lbs.
- Cocoa: 50,000 lbs.
- Chocolate coating: 500,000 lbs.
- Sugar: 14.5 truckloads, 650,000 lbs.
- Peanut butter: 230,000 lbs.
- Toasted coconut: 75,000 lbs.
