I’d ordinarily be reluctant to take on Warren Buffett and the Girls Scouts of America in a single blog post, but this story is too good to pass up. Have you heard? Dairy Queen, which is a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, struck a deal with the Girl Scouts to incorporate the Thin Mint, the best-selling of the Girl Scout cookies, into one of its Blizzards, an ice-cold drink.
The result of this ill-advised merger, according to a news release from DQ and the scouts, is a
A creamy soft serve blended with Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie pieces and a Crème de Menthe topping to create this summer’s blockbuster – the DQ® Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard.
Have they not heard about America’s obesity crisis?
The nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest couldn’t resist this story either. Their nutritionists analyzed a Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard—which weighs more than a pound!—and found that it contains more than 1,000 calories, an astonishing 31 teaspoons of sugar and more than a day’s allotment of saturated fat.
I think I’m going to be sick.
The folks at CSPI had some fun with this. Here’s an excerpt from their press release, quoting from the announcement from the Girls Scouts:
“Our partnership with Dairy Queen enables us to reach the public in new and unexpected places,” said Laurel Richie, who holds the position of “chief marketing officer” of the Girl Scouts of the USA, in a press release. Those “unexpected places” will include the waistlines and coronary arteries of at least 10 million people by the end of the month if the company meets its projections. Dairy Queen is on track to sell that many Thin Mint Blizzards by the end of July it told USA Today, but the chain and the Girl Scouts are both mum on how much money has changed hands.
CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson went on to say that “renting out its nonprofit brand name to a junk-food chain is a major badge of shame for the Girl Scouts.”
I dearly hope this isn’t a trend among corporations and nonprofit groups. Business-NGO partnerships can be good for all—think about the Avon walks for breast cancer research or the support that American Express lent to Share our Strength. But they become risky business when a nonprofit with a trusted brand lends its name to a company with a spotty record. The Sierra Club, for example, earlier this year endorsed a new line of “green” cleaning products from Clorox, even though the company continues to sell other cleaning products that are not as good for your health or the environment.
But this DQ-Girl Scouts deal takes the cake (yes, you can have the Thin Mint Blizzard as an ice-cream cake, too) because the product runs counter to the mission of the Girl Scouts. The group’s own website says that its advocacy program “encourages healthy living and combats obesity.” Crazy. To be sure, there’s nothing wrong with blizzards, burgers and shakes, so long as they are consumed in moderation. But given the unhappy reality that millions of Americans seem unable to moderate their eating habits (or to get off their big butts to exercise a few times every week), it’s the responsibility of big food companies to help solve the obesity crisis, not make it worse. Even Ben & Jerry’s now sells low-fat frozen yogurt.
And if you disagree with me that the obesity crisis is partly the responsibility of corporate America, surely you agree that a service organization like the Girl Scouts out to take the issue seriously. Instead, they give us the Thin Mint Blizzard, about a good a way as you could imagine to promote obesity and Type-2 diabetes to girls. Is there a merit badge for selling out?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Marc, I have long felt that this issue has not been raised–about Girl Scout cookies themselves! Have you ever read the nutrition label on one of the boxes of Girl Scout Cookies? The sweet faces of girlhood are actually selling us junk food. So this is not a new issue for the Girl Scouts but more importantly, it is one they do not see as in conflict with their advocacy programs or larger mission. To them, the Dairy Queen partnership is simply product extension and a revenue stream.
This is a free country, no one puts a gun to a consumers head and tell them to eat unhealthy. The last thing we need is a nanny state telling people how to live. If you want that china offers a close second.
I’m with you in that there’s just something inherently off about a major corporate food company partering with the Girl Scouts, but you’re way off line on your assessment.
So what if the Blizzard isn’t healthy? Has anyone ever gone to a DQ expecting to walk away with something healthy? You don’t go to DQ for a tofu burger, you go for a treat – which in and of itself means you don’t go all the time. And if you do, well then it’s your own damn fault you’re fat, NOT the restaurant’s fault for selling fatty food.
And how this is any more “counter to the mission of the Girl Scouts” than their selling cookies escapes me. The Girl Scouts themselves sell – as their one and only product – fat- and sugar-filled cookies. That seems to be ok with you, but yet you feel the need to chastise DQ for doing the very same thing all of us do – support the Girl Scouts by buying their cookies.
People need to take responsibility for their own actions and can’t keep blaming corporate America for their own actions.
The DQ deal is no more incongruous to their stated mission than them SELLING THE COOKIES AS A FUNDRAISER IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Personally, I don’t really have a problem with this at all — nothing wrong with enjoying an occasional treat like this, provided you eat a well-balanced, nutritional diet and exercise regularly.
Just don’t skip the work out and eat three of them after gorging yourself on a triple Brazier Burger and large fries.
To Hugo’s point, people are responsible for the choices they make.
Folks–I’m with you when it comes to personal responsibility. I don’t “blame” DQ or McDonald’s or Ben & Jerry’s or the makers of Cheetos for the obesity crisis.
But let’s recognize that this is a social problem with social costs, affecting all of us. Look at death rates from heart disease or hypertension. The other day, the NY Times reported that parents are now giving cholesterol-lowering drugs to kids. On a more trivial level, how do you like being squeezed by a supersized person on a plane or train? I think all of us, including companies and NGOs as influential as the Girl Scouts, have a role to play in promoting healthy behavior.
So I do blame DQ for using this deal to market bad stuff to kids. That’s irresponsible. Likewise, the girl scouts shouldn’t allow their brand to be used for something so unhealthy.
As for girl scout cookies, well, I didn’t want to go there in the first post. I’ve bought a lot of them in the past. But … they are not only unhealthy, they are pretty unappealing in every way. The only reason we buy them is to help the girl next door. They’d never survive if they had to compete with other cookies on the supermarket shelf.
Sorry, Marc, but I just don’t think you can slap DQ that while giving the Girl Scouts a free pass on this one — despite the fact that one is adorable and the other is not. You HAVE to “go there.”
If anything, it’s the Girl Scouts who should know better. I mean, DQ is just your typical money-grubbing company trying to make a fast buck. The Girl Scouts are the ones with the lofty “healthy living” pledge.
What was to stop them from saying “I’m sorry, DQ, we cannot enter into this business arrangement with you, because the resulting product would conflict with our pledge to promote healthy lifestyles”?