Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie

What You Need to Know Before You Buy VEGAN GIRL SCOUT COOKIES

As a former Girl Scout, I’ve sold my share of cookies.  And today, as ‘cookie time’ fast approaches, I was delighted to learn that in their efforts to make the world a better place, Girl Scouts have an impressive offering of Vegan cookies for sale this year.  In fact, the organization’s newest flavor, Toast-Yay, is Vegan.  Toast-Yay is a French toast inspired cookie.  Toast Yay is the 6th Vegan flavor in the GS cookie marketplace.  The others include Thin Mints (I know!!! ); Peanut Butter Patties; Lemonades; Thanks A Lot ; and Girl Scout S’mores.  Before you place your order, there are some details about these cookies that you may want to be aware of.  

ABC Bakers

First, you want to check out which bakery makes the cookies you order.  Girls Scouts uses two bakeries.  Only one of those bakeries makes Vegan versions of all of those cookies mentioned above, except Thin Mints.  No matter where you purchase the Thin Mint, it is guaranteed to be Vegan.  The bakery that makes Vegan versions of the other cookies is ABC Bakers. ABC also wants customers to know that while the Vegan cookies they produce have no dairy in them, they are made with equipment that makes other food items that contain dairy.   

May contain Palm Oil

Second, ABC Bakery wants you to know they do use Palm Oil, but that it is sustainably sourced.  As you may know, Palm Oil is in just about everything; including food, beauty products, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and much, much more.  The issue for me is that the booming Palm Oil industry has wiped out rain forests, displaced Indigenous people and is leading to the near extinction of the orangutan among other animals.  ABC Bakery says it works with the RSPO (The Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil) to ensure their Palm Oil is ethically sourced. 

Photo by Luca Ambrosi on Unsplash

It’s worth noting that the Associated Press and other news outlets reported in 2020 that the other Bakery that makes Girl Scout cookies, Little Brown Bakers in Kentucky does use Palm Oil that is sustainably sourced.  In fact, 14 year old Tennessee Girl Scout Olivia Chaffin started a petition requesting that the organization stop selling cookies after learning about palm oil in the cookies. 

https://apnews.com/article/palm-oil-forests-indonesia-scouts-83b01f2789e9489569960da63b2741c4

Girl Scouts and Grubhub

Third, the next detail you should know before you buy, has nothing to do with ethics.  It is actually about a pretty big partnership between Girl Scouts of America and the food delivery company Grubhub.  Due to COVID-19, many Girl Scouts will not be able to sell door to door, set up booths or even have their parents take their sign-up sheets to work.  Starting February 1st you will be able to order the cookies via Grubhub.   

Order Cookies Online

You can also order cookies online, while supporting your local troop.  Just click here for more details on that (https://www.girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/join/council-finder.html).  If there are some Girl Scouts who find a way to safely open up a booth, you can use their app to track down a location near you:   

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/girl-scout-cookie-finder/id593932097

Hopefully, this information will help you get your cookie fix, while supporting the environment and the animals by keeping a closer eye on what you buy.   

3 Comments

  1. Nina

    Thank you for all of this information. Very helpful!

  2. Ashley Bruce

    How can I select and purchase vegan Girl Scout cookies when the local troops online and in booths don’t offer those?

    1. Jacque

      Hey Ashley-actually, that is a good question. I will also check and let you know.

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