How Much for Thin Mints? Some Girl Scouts Raise Cookie Prices.

As if sticker shock in grocery stores hasn’t been enough, inflation has hit another consumer favorite: Girl Scout cookies.

When Girl Scouts in New York start their annual cookie sales this week, customers will be paying $7 a box for favorites like Thin Mints, Samoas, and Tagalongs, up from $5 last year.

“It has been six years since we’ve done a cookie price increase,” said Meridith Maskara, the chief executive of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York, which represents 25,000 members across the city’s five boroughs. “Girl Scouts are not immune to the rising costs of life.”

Across the country, Girl Scout troops have been seeing jumps in cookie prices over the last couple of years. But they are not all seeing them at the same levels. That’s because the 111 councils that make up the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. operate as individual nonprofit organizations and negotiate separate contracts with the two bakeries that are licensed to manufacture the cookies. The various councils also decide when to sell the cookies.

“While prices have remained steady in many areas for years, some councils have made the tough decision to shift prices,” the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. said in an emailed statement. The intent, it added, is to pay for rising costs and “to continue to provide robust support for local troops.”

So while cookie prices are climbing to $7 in New York this year, Girl Scouts in some parts of New Jersey, for instance, are charging $6 a box. That’s up from $5 or $5.50 last year. And other councils are not raising prices at all.