CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa Beth Shelton has had her hands in the cookie jar, so to speak. Part of her job involves being a secret taste-tester of new Girl Scout cookies, like the Exploremore (pictured above), before they hit the market. Writer: Jane Burns Photos: Duane Tinkey The pack ages come to Beth Shelton’s house at an appointed time, unmarked and sealed so well no one can fathom what’s inside. She tucks them away and says nothing, not even to her family. She isn’t a spy but she does keep secrets. As a member of the national committee that develops new cookies, she’s one of the few people who knows what’s coming next. “It’s really fun to be in the know,” she said. Shelton, the CEO of the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa, can at last talk about (some of) her confidential work, including the new cookie that will be introduced in this year’s cookie campaign, Feb. 1 through March 29. It’s called the Exploremore, a cookie three years in the making. Without any undue pressure or tricky reporting tactics from the staff here at dsm, Shelton told us it’s a chocolate sandwich cookie inspired by Rocky Road ice cream, with a filling that tastes of chocolate, marshmallows and a hint of toasted almonds. It will join 10 other cookies that make up the “cookie portfolio” that annually generates $800 million. Troop proceeds stay local, funding activities throughout the year. The Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa typically sell 1.5 million packages a year at a price that’s now $6, said Samie Swinton, the Greater Iowa council’s vice president of marketing and communications. Cookie rookie Cookies were a new thing for Shelton when she joined the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa in 2016. She had never sold them and was never a scout. Before her current job, she’d primarily worked in nonprofits — most recently the American Heart Association — so developing and marketing consumer packaged goods was a new experience, too. Shelton raised her hand in 2018 when the national organization sought new members for its cookie cabal, otherwise known as the National Product Program Committee. By then she had some experience as a troop support volunteer — in her words, a “cookie mom” — for the troop that includes her two daughters. But she quickly learned that the national committee’s work extends far beyond those tasty morsels in the colorful packages. She joined the dozen-member committee as it was finalizing the French toast-inspired Toast-Yay! that launched in 2021. Since then, she’s helped develop the Adventureful, Raspberry Rally and now the Exploremore. “The most fun part is thinking about the flavors, new cookie RD,” she said. “But I would say 90% of the work we do is really about the infrastructure of the cookie program.” In those off-months when cookie fans are dreaming about the return of Thin Mints and Caramel de-Lites, the committee is busy checking commodity and futures prices, supply chains, factory capacities, trademarks, intellectual property and food regulations. They also work to make sales as simple as possible, from ordering online to paying with Venmo. “The innovation in that lane is probably where the Girl Scout cookie program has advanced the most,” Shelton said. Behind the batch Supply chains aside, the fun part really is picking out the new flavors. The committee starts with concepts that fit in with the portfolio: Is it time for a sandwich cookie? Another chocolate option? What flavors are trending up or down? “It has to be, ‘How does this one flavor fit in?’” she said. “You don’t want to bring in a new flavor that would cannibalize something else. Just because chocolate and mint are good together, that doesn’t mean you want to introduce another mint cookie.” Committee members work with two baking companies: ABC Bakers of North Sioux City, South Dakota, and Little Brownie Bakery of Louisville, Kentucky. The bakeries own the recipes, which are trade secrets; the Girl Scouts don’t know the recipes, but they do own the trademarks and intellectual property. Even so, the cookie committee describes its concept, and each baker comes up with a prototype. Then the committee provides feedback without telling one baker what the other one is doing, with the goal of improving each batch until they produce whatever the committee dreamed up. “We have to work with them without revealing anything,” Shelton said of the two companies. By the end of the process, “we get harmonized cookies that are similar and have the same name.” The taste tests used to be in person, at a Girl Scout retreat facility in Westchester County near New York City. But the pandemic messed with that, so now the prototypes are mailed to the committee members’ homes, a process that remains in place. And that’s where the spy stuff comes in. The committee might as well call itself Troop 007. Members sign nondisclosure agreements — essentially, a legally binding Girl Scout Promise. Bakers send the prototypes on ice in unmarked boxes with tracking numbers and instructions for committee members about when to be home to receive them. “We can’t talk about what the flavors are and what we’re working on,” Shelton said. “I’ve got three kids. My family will see I have this package and they can’t even know what I’m trying. They can’t look at it, they can’t be around when I’m tasting it. “It’s all very top-secret.” Shelton and the committee are working on the next cookie. In what might seem like an act of journalistic negligence, she was not asked what that next cookie might be. Because when a Girl Scout says something is secret, you take her at her word. That’s just how the cookie crumbles. Trefoil Adventureful Lemonade Exploremore Caramel Delite Peanut Butter Sandwich Staff writer, copy editor and former Girl Scout Jane Burns was an average cookie saleswoman but an enthusiastic camp-going, round-singing and GORP-making scout all the way through high school. ...read more read less