Some sour on new Scout cookies

When Beverly Knight of Chapel Hill bit into her Girl Scout cookies this year, the disappointment was bitter. The peanut butter sandwich was too dry. The shortbread had a funny aftertaste. She didn't immediately complain to the girl who sold her the cookies, but she intended to tell her she wouldn't be buying those again next year.

Girl Scouts across the Triangle have been dealing with customer complaints and boxes of stale cookies as they run their largest annual fundraiser. A switch in bakers has them explaining new names and tastes. And a leaky warehouse roof has tainted some peanut butter cookies sold throughout the Southeast -- both patties and sandwiches.

By Friday, most troops had exchanged unsold peanut butter cookies for new boxes to sell at outside tables during the weekend. And they've got cards with a hotline number to give customers who already have stale cookies. The baker is offering an exchange or refund.

Despite the problems, the North Carolina Coastal Pines Council, which includes girls from Hillsborough to Wilmington, appears to be on track to sell at least as many as the 2.5 million boxes they sold last year, said spokeswoman Katy Hipp.

But parents hear complaints.

"Some people bought the cookies and said they taste differently -- of course, because it's a different baker and different ingredients," said Dana Clark, area cookie sales manager for northern Durham.

About half the comments have been negative. "It takes some getting used to," she said.

Nancy Hanley of Durham sold 40 boxes with her daughter, Nicole, 8. When she tasted her first peanut butter sandwich cookie, it was stale. "Instead of having a nice crunch it was like, 'Ugh! I'd be better off buying cookies from the vending machine,'" she said.

Now she feels she should issue refunds for the $3.50 boxes. "I'm not going to be peddling cookies," Hanley said. "That's it."

Girl Scouts rely on cookie sales to help pay for badges, service projects, camps and even trips to international scouting centers.

Councils nationwide have a choice between two licensed bakers. For more than a decade, Triangle scouts have sold cookies from Little Brownie Bakers in Louisville, Ky., which bakes the Samoas and Tagalongs, among others. In Wilmington and other coastal areas of North Carolina, Girl Scouts sold Caramel deLites, Peanut Butter Patties and other cookies from ABC Bakers, which has headquarters in Richmond and a bakery in South Dakota.

Last year the councils merged and selected a baker by bids. ABC Bakers won.

Some don't taste a difference.

Pledger Fedora of Durham loved her thin mints and didn't even notice the new ridged edges and holes on top. "I guess I wasn't paying attention to how they were looking, I was too busy eating," she said.

Emily McMillan, a Wake County troop leader who grew up with Caramel deLites in Alabama, said the switch in bakers wasn't a big deal. "In other parts of the country, this is normal stuff," McMillan said.

Knight, however, noticed.

"If they don't go back to the other bakery, I won't buy them anymore," Knight said. "I'd rather just give them the money and not get the cookies."

The council has received phone calls mostly about the peanut butter cookies, Hipp said. Some boxes were wet and others damaged by the moisture, creating a soft cookie with a stale taste.

The council stayed open late Friday and planned to be open today to continue responding to phone calls and e-mail messages.

Sherry Sybesma, senior vice president of ABC Bakers, said that her company set up a hotline this year because they picked up more than 7 percent of the Girl Scout cookie market share nationwide -- they now bake 40 percent of the cookies sold -- and anticipated calls from new customers. Sybesma said few customers take advantage of their money-back guarantee because they know the cookies support the girls.

"We stand behind [the cookies] because we've got little girls out there selling them and we want to make them happy. That's our job," Sybesma said.

"Our total customer contacts over a year are probably one-quarter of one percent," she said. "A good number of those are comments on how good the cookies are and questions on where they can get them."

Hipp said feedback that Girl Scouts receive this year will be considered when it comes time to choose a baker for next year.

(Staff writers Yonat Shimron and Meiling Arounnarath contributed to this report.)