Story By Elizabeth Moore
Photos By Ellie Crowther-Dias
Graphics By Layna Hong
Are those caramel-coconut-chocolate Girl Scout cookies you just bought called Samoas or Caramel deLites? Are the peanut butter-chocolate cookies Tagalongs or Peanut Butter Patties? Do they taste the same, even if they have a different name?
It depends on where you buy them in North Carolina. It also depends on how much of a cookie connoisseur you are.
This weekend is National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend. It’s the season when you go to the grocery store with a list and leave with an armful of multicolored cookie boxes. More than 200 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies are sold annually, but most people don’t realize that certain cookies have regional differences in name and taste.
The names and recipes of four popular cookies are distinct because of business contracts between local Girl Scout Councils and the bakeries, whose recipes and ingredients differ. Across most of North Carolina, Girl Scouts sell cookies produced by ABC Bakers. But in the Charlotte area and the northern portion of the coast, the cookies come from Little Brownie Bakers.
This has created a North Carolina regional cookie divide, with people defending one cookie name or taste over another. Others simply don’t know there’s a difference, causing confusion at the cookie table.
Former New Mexico resident Lisa Farrell wanted to buy the caramel-coconut-chocolate cookies at a recent sale in Carrboro, where they’re called Caramel deLites. Farrell said she’s never seen the cookies called by the names they have in the Triangle.
“I went to ask for a box of Samoas, and I was like ‘Oh they don’t have Samoas,’” she said, “and then I looked at the picture and that’s how I knew.”
Cookies through the ages
The source of Girl Scout cookies has changed over the program’s history. At one point Girl Scouts of the United States licensed 29 bakers to produce the cookies nationwide, in 1948. In the 1960s that number was down to 14 and then “streamlined” to four in 1978, according to the Girl Scouts website.
Today Girl Scout councils — umbrella organizations that lead multiple Girl Scout troops by region — sign contracts with one of the two bakeries at their own discretion.
Councils determine the prices of boxes, taking into account its needs and the local market, according to the Girl Scouts website. There are four councils in North Carolina.
Although the regional councils have some autonomy, in 1982 Girl Scouts of the United States classified three cookies as “mandatory” — Thin Mint, Peanut Butter Sandwich/Do-si-dos, and Shortbread/Trefoils, according to the Girl Scout website.
Girl Scouts helping a customer during a bake sale in front of Harris Teeter in Carrboro in February 2022
Girl Scouts of the United States declined to answer why it licenses two rather than one baker.
“We don’t typically provide commentary on business decisions regarding the two bakers,” a representative said in an email.
North Carolina cookie divide
Two North Carolina councils sell Little Brownie cookies (with names like Samoas and Tagalongs): Girl Scouts of the Colonial Coast and Girl Scouts Hornets’ Nest. These councils encompass the northeast corner of the state and the Charlotte area, only about 20% of the state.
UNC Charlotte student Briana Branch likes the flavor of coconutty Samoas (elsewhere known as Caramel deLites) the best.
“I also have a preference for that name rather than Caramel deLites,” she said, “because I grew up in Charlotte and it’s all I know.”
But for the butter cookies sold in her area, Trefoils, she prefers the other baker’s name.
“Shortbread just sounds like it fits the cookie way better,” she said.
Shortbread from ABC Bakers (left) vs. Trefoils from Little Brownie Bakers (right).
Two other councils sell ABC cookies (Think: Caramel deLites, Peanut Butter Patties): Girl Scouts North Carolina Coastal Pines, and Girl Scouts Carolinas Peaks to Piedmont. These councils cover about 80% of the state.
Several central councils in North Carolina merged in the late 2000s to form Coastal Pines. The new council sells ABC cookies. Some former Scouts in the Triangle remember that switch causing disruption.
RT Helms, a former Scout who sold cookies in Raleigh from 1999 to 2011, said customers noticed the change in flavor from Little Brownie (Helms’ personal favorite) to ABC cookies.
“We got a lot of comments on that in the couple years after the switch,” Helms said.
Helms’ sister Alexandra also was a lifetime Scout. After the switch, she thought ABC cookies tended to be stale compared to Little Brownie cookies, but ABC seemed to offer more flavor variety as well as vegan and gluten-free cookies.
The names of what they used to sell — Little Brownie’s Tagalongs and Do-si-dos — are more fun, she said.
“That was what I was most bummed about when we switched bakers,” she said.
Heather Erlemann was a Cary Scout in elementary school when the bakery switch happened. She continued selling cookies for years after and witnessed the confusion.
She couldn’t tell a difference in taste, she said, but some people said Little Brownie cookies were better. She remembers how Tagalongs turned into Peanut Butter Patties.
“We got to know all the names because people would come up and ask for their favorite cookie, and we’d be like ‘Oh it changed names, but it’s the same thing I promise,’” Erlemann said.
So which one is really better?
Little Brownie’s Tagalongs, Samoas and Trefoils all have longer ingredient lists than their ABC counterparts. Little Brownie’s Do-si-dos have fewer ingredients but lists peanut butter as the fifth ingredient, as opposed to it being the first in ABC’s ingredients.
Peanut Butter Sandwich from ABC Bakers (left) vs. Do-si-dos from Little Brownie Bakers (right).
Even Thin Mints, the most popular Girl Scout cookie, have different ingredients between the two varieties, with Little Brownie’s version listing “oil of peppermint” and ABC’s containing natural and artificial flavor.
ABC Bakers and its parent company Hearthside Food Solutions declined to comment on its Girl Scout cookie names and recipes.
“In our role as a baker, we do not speak to the media about any of our customers or their brands,” said May Ellen Oakley, Girl Scout Analyst for Customer Experience.
At the end of the day, North Carolina can quibble about cookie minutia, or it can munch in blissful ignorance. Mark Heizer, a Carrboro cookie customer, said he never paid attention to the names.
“I normally just open the box and eat them,” he said, “and they’re all good.”
