The Girl Scouts are discontinuing a cult-favorite cookie

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN Business

New York (CNN) — The Girl Scouts are discontinuing a popular cookie just a year after its debut sparked a frenzy.

Raspberry Rally won’t be sold this upcoming cookie-sales season, which runs January to April 2024, Girl Scouts of the USA has announced. The Rallies was introduced last year as a “sister” cookie to the iconic Thin Mints, a crisp mint-flavored cookie encased in chocolate, but in the Raspberry Rally, the cookie was replaced with a bright pink berry-flavored one. It was dipped in the same chocolate coating as its sibling.

The Rallies were the Girl Scouts’ first-ever cookie to be exclusively sold online, a strategy aimed at “enhancing girls’ e-commerce sales and entrepreneurial skills,” the organization announced last year.

But demand created an online shopping spree with some chapters reporting they sold out of the $5 boxes in less than a day. Resellers offered the Rallies on eBay for as much as $30 per box. The organization didn’t disclose how many boxes they produced.

“While Raspberry Rally was extremely popular last year, we are taking a pause this season to prioritize supplying our classic varieties,” the Girl Scouts of the USA said in a statement to CNN.

This year, not even Girl Scout cookies are immune from inflation: Some chapters have announced that they will sell for $6 per box this upcoming coming cookie season -— an increase of a $1 on some varieties from last year.

Some cookies, like S’mores and Toffee-Tastic, were already priced at $6. But now the higher price will apply to other cookies that the troops sell, including the more classic varieties. Troops across the country announced price increase from $4 to $5 a box in 2014 and 2015.

An explanation sent from the Girl Scouts Heart of the Hudson to troop parents said the price hike was to “combat rising production and material costs.”

Consumers have been tightening their wallets when it comes to discretionary items, and some may balk at the higher prices.

But Girl Scouts learned last year that there is a market for higher-priced cookies, thanks to the Raspberry Rally debacle. The Rallies changed hands several times higher than their listed price, to the likely frustration of the Girl Scouts leadership.

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