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The Girl-Scout Cookie Makeover
By KELLY CROW
January 26, 2007; Page W2
It's cookie-selling season for many of the country's 2.8 million Girl Scouts, and for the first time all of the girls' goodies have essentially no trans fats. It's part of a drive by the $4 billion food- and gift-oriented fund-raising industry to make its foods healthier -- and boost sagging sales.
Girl Scouts of the USA says it's too soon to tell whether the new batch of Caramel DeLites and Peanut Butter Patties will outsell last year's, which brought in about $700 million. But with health officials railing against childhood obesity and schools increasingly banning junk food, the Scouts are hardly the only nonprofit rolling out Thin(ner) Mints.
Sugar high: Americans buy about 200 million boxes of Girl Scout cookies each year, the group says.
World's Finest Chocolate, which relied on school groups to help sell nearly 150 million candy bars last year to raise funds, says all its products will be "completely trans-fat-free" by next year, including its popular Mint Meltaway. (The company's Web site even extols the benefits of the antioxidants in chocolate.) Van Wyk Confections, maker of the One Dollar Bar, has introduced a "healthy and nutritious" pretzel kit that allows kids to twist and bake their own at home. Fundraising.com recently added a health-conscious category that includes granola bars, trail mix, fruit snacks and even bottled water -- complete with school mascots on the labels.
Healthier foods may be needed to reverse slowing sales. Overall sales of food and other products resold for charitable causes fell 11% last year, according to the Association of Fund-Raising Distributors and Suppliers. Vickie Mabry, the trade group's associate director, says school candy bans are partly to blame for the decrease, along with "oversaturation" of the market -- children continually raising funds for overlapping school activities.
Because adults typically are the biggest customers of school fund-raisers, manufacturers also are fighting back by adding more gift-oriented products, including candles and tree ornaments. "Cheerleading squads still have to raise money every year, so we're branching out," says Mark Van Wyk, of Van Wyk Confections. He says he gets 20% of his sales from a new dry-mix cookie dough, which school groups can sell by the tub. His doggie treats are also popular.
Some early tasters of the new Girl Scout cookies give them a thumbs-up. Emily Lansing, 12 years old, of San Jose, Calif., who sold 1,150 boxes of the cookies last year, recently tested the new version of her favorite, a shortbread called Thanks-A-Lot. "My mom told me it was better for me, but it tasted the same," she says.
Yet some parents and health advocates say food companies could do more to make fund-raising treats healthier. Annette Tassone, an applied psychologist and mother of two in Denville, N.J., says she's upset that Girl Scout cookies are labeled "zero trans fat," but some contain up to a half-gram of partially hydrogenated oil or trans fat. (A Scout spokeswoman says the amount per serving meets government guidelines.) Does that mean Ms. Tassone's 7-year-old daughter, a Brownie, won't be selling cookies this year? "Hypocritically, I'm letting her, but I go along [on the sales calls] so I can educate people at the same time," she says.
Gift of the Week/ Giving to Creativity
Who gave it: Keith Wellin, a retired director of the company now called Morgan Stanley, and his wife, Wendy Wellin
How much: $10 million
Who got it: Hamilton College, Clinton, N.Y. By request: The funds will help pay for a 65,000-square-foot arts complex, including a museum and theater.
How it happened: Warren Buffett inspires many investors and philanthropists, but for Mr. Wellin he has also been the ultimate enabler. Mr. Wellin, who graduated from Hamilton in 1950 with a B.A. in philosophy and English, spent more than 30 years in the investment business. But his best stock pick was his 1971 purchase of shares (he won't say how many) in Mr. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate.
In those days, recalls Mr. Wellin, Berkshire's annual meetings were far from today's closely watched affairs. "There was no one there but a bunch of farmers and shopkeepers from Omaha," he says. The shares later soared and "dwarfed everything else I made." That helped lead to the largest gift ever to the liberal arts college, which Mr. Wellin says he valued for its "intimacy" and broad curriculum. The gift honors Mr. Wellin's mother, Ruth, and father, Elmer, an amateur artist who piqued his son's interest in art. Mr. Wellin plans to leave Hamilton several paintings, including a work by George Wesley Bellows.
---- Sally Beatty
This story appeared in the Wall Street Journal on January 26, 2007; Page W2
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