Getting Shortchanged on Girl Scout Cookies
The Boy Scouts have the Scout Law, the first point of which is that a Scout is Trustworthy. I don't know if the Girl Scouts have similar ideals. But if they do, then it's not showing in the most visible aspect of Girl Scouting - Girl Scout Cookies.
The Thin Mints box has the words "Courage Confidence Character" and says that the "Girl Scout Cookie Program promotes financial skills such as goal setting, decision-making, customer-service and money management." Unfortunately, although the girls don't know it, they are also promoting the all-American ideal of deceptive packaging.
I am looking at a box of Thin Mints. The box is 7-5/16" high. Each sleeve of cookies inside is 5-7/16" high. Doing the math, that means that the box is 26% air. Thin Mints are dense, closely packed cookies. They don't settle after they are packaged, so this deceptive packaging is known and is intentionally done by the Girl Scouts and Keebler, who manufactures the cookies and markets them through its subsidiary, Little Brownie Bakers.I am happy to spend more for less cookies, if that's what the Girl Scouts need to remain solvent, but I'm not willing to support their packaging, which promises a certain amount a cookies, but delivers 26% less.
posted by Scott @ 3/02/2008
3 comments
3 Comments:
they sell by weight, not volume
You're kidding, right? There's quite a lot to take Girl Scout Cookies to task for -- for instance, they're a remarkably low-quality, highly processed food ("peanut butter" with partially hydrogenated oil, etc ..).
Complaining that a product sold by weight has exceed packaging volume? That's just silly.
Oh come on. Nobody buys Girl Scout cookies for their nutritional value. They sell because of of their snarfing value. So nobody reads the label for nutrition facts, and nobody reads the label for weight.
It's about misrepresenting the amount of product being sold. It's not breakfast cereal, where the "contents may have settled after filling." Thin Mints don't settle.
You're commenting on last year's post, but this year they have at least reduced their package size to match the cookie volume.
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