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Nichole

Girl Scout Cookies are getting smaller!

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What is the world coming to? Instead of raising the price, they are making them smaller! I already have to eat too many now to feel full! :rotfl: They are going to actually sell more I think because you have to eat more!

Still sucks.

Article from the AJC:

Girl Scout cookies shrink along with economy

Higher prices for flour, cocoa, transportation mean smaller cookies this year

By BOB KEEFE

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

The lousy economy is taking a bite out of even the venerable Girl Scout cookie.

Higher prices for flour, oil and cocoa will mean smaller Samoas and thinner boxes of Thin Mints for many cookie consumers this year. Tighter household budgets, meanwhile, are threatening to put a pinch on sales, even for the sweetest of Scouts.

“Oh, I am so prayerful that we will” meet our goals, said Anita Walton, product sales manager for the 40,000-member Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, which typically sells 3 million to 3.5 million boxes a year.

After a month of door-to-door sales, Atlanta-area Girl Scouts turn in their sales tallies this week.

Fears about deadly peanut butter also are threatening sales, even though the Girl Scouts say none of their peanut butter cookies contain paste from the Georgia plant at the center of a nationwide salmonella outbreak.

Regardless of how sales end up, buyers might notice they’re getting a little less for their $3.50 per box when they get their goodies in a couple of months.

Samoas and Tagalongs, for instance, are slightly smaller this year.

Boxes of Thin Mints, Do-si-dos and Trefoils are smaller by an ounce in some markets — the equivalent of two fewer Thin Mints per box — but because Georgia troops use a different baker, Georgians will get just as many Thin Mints as they did last year, according to Walton.

Michelle Tompkins, national spokeswoman for the Girl Scouts, said flour prices at the organization’s two bakers are up 30 percent. Transportation costs are up just as much. Cocoa prices, she said, rose 20 percent or more.

In Atlanta, Girl Scouts are appealing to consumers’ charitable sides to support sales this year. Scouts are asking consumers to buy a few extra boxes to donate to local food banks and shelters, Walton said.

“We know some of our areas have been hard hit with layoffs and business closings,” she said. “But even if people are cutting back … we ask that they think about those donations.”

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Man, that's a bummer! I can expect that from the candy bar makers and so forth, it is actually common to do that. You reduce the size with out increasing the price, then you increase the price slightly. You get two increases that way, one in reduced costs, the other in consumer spending. But not the Girl Scouts.....bummer....

Beth

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I know Beth I have seen that done in fast food by why do that in the girl scots I am to the point I would like to hand them cash so they get the full amount in stead % of it.

Now that you mention it, the Big Mac used to look bigger to me!

Beth

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Depressing news man...I like totally dig them cookies and now I will have to buy an extra box to make up the diff...I guess...wait a minute...that's the gimmick isn't it?

Sucks to be hooked.

Rod!~

I already get too many boxes now!! :think:

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My favorites are the ones the Girl scouts sell! lol

I believe the process of shrinking products to maintain price points is often euphemistically called, "Right Sizing". For an historical reference, check this slightly dry, but interesting site. See especially the "Hershey Bar Index". http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq5.html#candybar

Every year, my season really begins with me cleaning the dock pit at a local United Van Lines agency, so that it is clean enough to use as a pedestrian distribution point for the Girls to come pickup their cookies.

Cookies are in in Omaha! Friday is the wash, Monday they start going out, and my rig will be on hand to catch the parents' attention.

WooHoo!

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