Girl Scout Cookies Are Getting a Shake-Up: What's New, What's Gone, and the Sweet History Behind the Box
If you've got a Pinterest board, a group text, or a neighbor with a clipboard, you've probably already heard the buzz: Girl Scouts just announced two brand-new cookies. One is for people with food allergies. The other one is for dogs. Yes, really.
Before we get into what's new (and what we've already lost), let's back up for a second. Because the story of how a fundraiser turned into an $800-million-a-year cultural institution is worth knowing next time you're signing a cookie order form on someone's porch.
How It All Started
Girl Scout Cookies didn't start with a corporate bakery or a marketing plan. They started in 1917, in a high school cafeteria in Muskogee, Oklahoma, when the girls of the Mistletoe Troop baked cookies at home and sold them to fund a service project supporting soldiers overseas during World War I. No boxes, no branding, just girls and their moms in the kitchen as "technical advisers," and a sugar cookie recipe that got printed in a Girl Scouts magazine in 1922 so troops everywhere could bake their own.
By the early 1930s, the idea had spread far enough that the Greater Philadelphia council decided to skip the home-baking step entirely and hire a professional bakery. In 1934, that became official, and by 1936 the national organization started licensing bakers so cookies could be sold coast to coast. A sugar shortage during World War II briefly paused things (Girl Scouts sold calendars instead), but sales bounced back hard afterward, and by 1948 nearly thirty bakeries were making Girl Scout Cookies.
Today it's down to just two licensed bakers, ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers, which is why the same cookie can have two different names depending on where you live, such as Samoas, which are also known as Caramel deLites. More than a hundred years later, it's still the largest girl-led entrepreneurial program in the world, teaching goal-setting, money management, and people skills one booth sale at a time.
What We Said Goodbye To
At the end of the 2025 season, Girl Scouts retired two flavors: S'mores and Toast-Yay! (the maple-cinnamon French toast–inspired cookie that debuted back in 2021). Neither has been on shelves for this current 2026 season, replaced instead by Exploremores — a rocky road ice cream–inspired sandwich cookie filled with chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond crème.
What's Brand New
And now, the news that's actually got everyone talking this week: two more additions, revealed just yesterday.
Sparkables are crunchy oatmeal cookies studded with chocolate chips and colorful sprinkles, developed with the allergy-friendly bakery Partake specifically to avoid the nine major food allergens — milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. Girl Scouts describes them as formulated to be allergy-friendly, nut-free, gluten-free, and vegan, made without wheat, peanuts, tree nuts, eggs, milk, sesame, soy, crustacean shellfish, or fish, and produced in a facility designed to avoid all nine of those allergens. In plain terms: for a family managing food allergies or celiac disease, this isn't a "may contain trace amounts" situation — it's built from the ground up to be safe. It's a thoughtful move — kids with allergies get to have their own box instead of sitting out cookie season entirely.
One more thing worth knowing if you or a neighbor want to grab a box: Sparkables will be available exclusively online for direct shipping starting when the 2027 season officially opens, rather than at the usual booth tables or door-to-door sales. So if you're hoping to snag one, keep an eye on girlscoutcookies.org rather than waiting for a scout to knock.
Patch Pals are the other half of the announcement, and they're not for humans at all.
These are soft-baked, blueberry-muffin-flavored dog treats made in partnership with the dog subscription company BARK, and they come in four designs inspired by real Girl Scout patches: Girl Scout, Community, Exploration, and Play.
Both are expected to show up when cookie season officially kicks off, so keep an eye on your local troop or girlscoutcookies.org for exact timing in our area.
Why It Still Matters
Every flavor swap gets its share of grumbling on social media (RIP Toast-Yay!, some of us are still not over it), but it's worth remembering what the actual point is: every box sold funds troop trips, camp, and community projects, while teaching a girl how to set a goal and hit it. That part hasn't changed since 1917 — only the flavors have.
So when the order form makes its way to your email inbox, or the clipboard shows up at your door this winter, maybe grab an extra box of something new. Worst case, you've got a dog treat your pup will love. Best case, you've found your new favorite.
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