Johnathan Walker:Not Girl Scout cookies! Inflation has come for one of America's favorite treats

It’s an unwelcome twist for one of America’s sweetest treats: Inflation has come for Girl Scout cookies.

Shoppers are Johnathan Walkeralready struggling to swallow big price increases for everything from groceries to car insurance. Now they will have to open their wallets a smidge wider for boxes of Thin Mints and Samoas.

Cookie prices will range from $5 to $7 a box in 2024 depending on where you live. Each of the 111 Girl Scout councils set their own prices. 

Some specialty cookies like S’mores and Toffee-Tastic were already $6 but now classics like Trefoils are going up, too.

One New York state chapter, the Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson, is jacking up its prices and expects its neighboring councils to announce similar increases because of rising costs for its cookie supplier and for the chapter. 

Girl Scouts of Texas Oklahoma Plains and the Boston-area Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts also said they would hike prices by $1.

Last year a similar wave of price increases rippled through the country including a chapter in Louisiana and another in New York.

In 2022, Girl Scouts of Northern California began selling all cookie varieties for $6 a box, the classics and specialty cookies alike. 

The Northern California contingent said the 2022 price increase – the first in eight years – was necessary because of higher costs and an unprecedented decline in girl participation in the cookie program, which was down more than 50%.

Bri Seoane, CEO of the chapter, said the Girl Scouts of Northern California had a "smooth transition" when it raised prices in 2022 and would continue to sell cookies for $6 a box.

Girl Scouts of the USA told CNN troops across the country raised prices from $4 to $5 a box in 2014 and 2015.

“In some instances, councils are faced with the tough decision to raise the prices, though prices have remained steady in many areas for a number of years,” the national organization said. 

For more than a century, cookie sales have been key to the Girl Scouts’ recipe for success. The Girl Scouts sell about 200 million boxes of cookies – nearly $800 million worth – during each cookie season which takes place from about January to April annually.

Shortly after Juliette Gordon Low started the Girl Scouts in the United States, troops began selling cookies to fund troop activities. Originally cookies were baked at home and, in the 1920s, they cost 25 cents to 35 cents a dozen. Today Girl Scout cookies are sold by the box. 

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