That's How the Cookie Crumbles: Girl Scout Sales Tumble to Decade Low Amid Ingredient Concerns, Pricing

This writer was a Girl Scout, and the annual cookie sale was always a huge deal. As she grew up and aged out of being a Girl Scout, she'd gladly buy cookies from other girls trying to raise money for their troop.

But the prices of the cookies have gone up, up, up over the years, while the quality has not. When the Girl Scouts discontinued their best cookie -- the lemon pastry creams -- this writer tapped out.

In March of this year, a lawsuit was filed in a federal court in New York after a study showed the baked goods have unsafe levels of heavy metals and even herbicides.

So sales have dropped off.

NYC Girl Scout cookie sales crumble to decade low — thanks to ‘economic uncertainty’ https://t.co/CZnuGrN0LR pic.twitter.com/pFSgK5fuq8
— New York Post (@nypost) May 4, 2025

More from the New York Post:

Economic uncertainty is taking a giant bite out of New York Girl Scout cookie sales — leaving the local chapter of the organization with its lowest performing season in over a decade, The Post has learned.
Scouts across the five boroughs hawked just 1.1 million boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and other cookies (including and the now-discontinued S’mores) during the 2024-2025 season as penny-pinching New Yorkers tightened their belts.
That’s the lowest sales figure since the 2013-2014 season, when the Girl Scouts of Greater New York (GSGNY) sold just over 1 million boxes of their famous cookies, according to the group’s annual financial reports.
It’s also half of the record-breaking 2.2 million boxes that were sold during 2020-2021 as the Big Apple was plunged into the COVID-19 pandemic.

X users didn't buy the 'economic uncertainy' argument. There have been recessions and economic downturns, but the cookies always sold well.

Unpopular fact: The mothers of these girl scouts that are selling their cookies outside of supermarkets, are teaching their kids to be way too aggressive with trying to sell them.

I'm here for the five items on my Post-it note. Get out of my way, and if I told you "No, thank… https://t.co/csx7XbUxf0
— Deebs (@DeebsFLA) May 4, 2025

That, too.

Wanna know a fun fact that shows how different parenting is now than the 80s? I sold Girl Scout cookies door-to-door by myself in my neighborhood when I was a Daisy, so I was 5, in Durham. Much more dangerous time and town, but I’d def get reprimanded if I did the same now. https://t.co/XhtVDiCqLJ
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) May 5, 2025

This writer sold them door-to-door too.

I made it a point to stop buying Girl Scout cookies because they have turned that organization into little Fem-Bot Brown Shirt radicals. Has NOTHING to do with the economy. https://t.co/1CimxvNgdV
— TexasAF❎️🇺🇸 (@DillowTalk2) May 5, 2025

The politics of the Girl Scouts organization cannot be overlooked.