Learn All About Girl Scout Cookies. Start listening to the audio at 12:30 for that story.

Today we’re going to be talking about Girl Scout cookies, which may seem random and somewhat irrelevant, but when you’ve lived in the US for a while, you’ll start to realize how big the Girl Scout cookie craze is. Every year, sometime between January and March usually, depending on your troop, Girl Scouts between the ages of 5 and 18 set up tables full of cookies in front of grocery stores and department stores across the US.

Although 12 cookie types exist as of this year, if you check out the Girl Scouts website, each troop may decide which cookies they want to sell. On the table you’ll usually find between seven and eight different types of cookies and always, of course, the classics, which are Thin Mints, Samoas and Trefoils, which I’ll explain in a bit.

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Nowadays, the number of baking companies involved has been reduced to two: Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers.

Although the packages are virtually the same, the recipes and names of cookies vary slightly between the two baking companies. It’s not really a big deal, it just causes a little bit of confusion among consumers who decide to buy cookies in a different area and then see different names of the cookies on the package.

In total, about one million Girl Scouts take part in sales and the total cookie sales has reached 200 million boxes sold in recent years. As I mentioned in the beginning, 200 million boxes adds up to about 800 million dollars, with each box going at around $4 to $5 per box.

25 percent of sales come from cookies called Thin Mints, which are thin mint-flavored chocolate wafers dipped in a chocolate coating.