Ah Wal-Mart...what a class act. Actually I think their late founder would be turning in his grave at this one.

FYI Keebler has had thin mints for a long long long long long time. They call them grasshoppers.

@logicalnoise: The blogger disagrees. She says the Keebler ones are far inferior. The problem with the Walmart ones is that they're close to being as good as the original:

IMHO, the Keebler cookie doesn't count as a real knock off, mostly because it's just not that good. It really doesn't come close to an authentic thin mint, unless you are desperate (as we often are, counting down to the GS cookie sale).

The problem with the Wal-mart cookies is that they are pretty good… nice minty crunch in the cookie, thick layer of chocolate that you can scrape off with your front teeth and that won't dissolve in your milk… The Wal-mart cookie, unlike the Keebler cookie, is 'substitutable' for the authentic Thin Mint, and that's what makes this a competitive strategy problem for the GS.

Scandalous but hey, it's all about the free market right?

Messing with the Girl Scouts? Bad idea. They can kick your shins pretty hard.

Well, it was time the girl scouts earned that merit badge on competition in a global marketplace.

Well, why don't the girl scouts sell these cookies year round online? I get the use of door to door selling and stuff (hard working values, etc.) but people always end up sans cookies by April. Wal Mart's just filling the void.

Wow - so knock offs are okay (Keebler) as long as they aren't very good?

No one buys Girl Scout cookies because no other (tasty) alternatives are available. We buy them to support the Girl Scouts and still will regardless of the fact that (gasp!) other companies sell cookies.

The "Girl Scouts" have had a monopoly on girl scout cookies for years it's about time someone broke that cycle and how is that not only you have a monopoly on girl scout cookies but its sold seasonally? what's up with that. The "Girls Scouts" don't even come to my neighborhood which is not the worst part NO the worst part is I give them my money but I gotta wait more than six weeks to get my d@mn cookies! I never liked Wal-Mart before but I think I'm going to start shopping there, especially for my girl scout cookies. Let capitalism reign! I'm being serious by the way.

While I can see their point it's not as if you can run to the store and buy Girl Scout cookies. You sort of have to have a co-worker who has a daughter or be lucky when they come around at home to get them. You can't even buy the cookies from their website (they have a "Cookie Finder" that directs you to local troupes who are selling them, and they're only at certain times).

So while I can sympathize with the Girl Scouts for not wanting Walmart to knock them off Walmart is probably appealing to the people who *WANT* to buy the cookies but can't due to their exclusivity.

@Trulymadlyme: That is a really good idea, actually. The money they make in online sales could be divvied up evenly.

@logicalnoise: Yeah this lady seems a bit off to me. I'm certainly not one to defend Wal-Mart, but these aren't exactly "knockoffs."

She goes off on some bits about "authenticity," but it's not like the product packaging says it's raising funds for community "yutes" or, by the looks of the image she has there, even attempts to mimic the Girl Scouts cookie packages.

@Ben Popken: "The problem with the Walmart ones is that they're close to being as good as the original"

A superior store-brand product at a discount price?

Shocking! Outrageous!! How dare they?!

(Note that if this was any other combination than the eeevil Wal-mart and pure-as-the-driven-snow Girl Scouts, Consumerist would (or should) be lauding this consumer-friendly option.)

@Trulymadlyme: We have a Girl Scouts store near me, I guess it's mainly for the scout leaders and parents to get memorabilia and patches and clothing and whatnot, but they also have GS cookies, ALL the time.

That's VERY bad news for my tummy.

@Ben Popken: good point but even so walmart sells the keebler cookies as well, they also sell the EDY's thin mint ice cream when it's in season. I'd say it's possible Wal-mart intended to just make some money on thin mints when they weren't in season. Most walmarts always give prime curbspace to scout troops boys and girls.

@SkokieGuy:

Yep... I thought the same thing. Other companies can make a knock-off of their cookies, but they just have to STAY DOWN! LOL Not be tasty and delicious like the Girl Scout version. I think her thinkin' is stinkin'.

I mean, I know I buy the cookies from Girl Scouts to support them and their organization. Plus, I lurves me some shortbreads!

I don't want to discount her views, but I think she's just mad because now the Girl Scouts might have to work a little harder. Ahhhh, the world is changing...

BooHoo. Maybe they shouldn't have been trying to sell 10 cookies for 5 dollars or whatever ridiculous figures are for all these years, especially in a down economy. Does anyone have any information about how much money really benefits the girls directly or is the majority funneled off to a CEO somewhere (eg. United Way..)

Her comments are a really good ad for the Walmart cookies. Why not just ignore them instead of publicizing that Walmart sells really good cookies at a much better price than the Thin Mints?

Seriously, who would have noticed? The people who stock up to support their neighbor's kids aren't actively searching for alternatives.

I didn't know that the Girl Scouts had a moral-outrage-protected monopoly on chocolate-coated chocolate-mint cookies.

@logicalnoise: I came in to say the exact same thing. They're an acceptable substitute to Thin Mints in my opinion.

I'm calling BS on this entire story. Seems to me like some soccer mom with some spare time on her hands and a personal vendetta against Wal-Mart. The Girl Scouts don't own the exclusive rights to mint cookies, or any other cookies, for that matter. Anything that they sell has been done at some point before.

And stop acting like Wal-Mart is out to destroy the Girl Scouts. If the livelihood of your entire non-profit organization hinges on cookie sales, you're doing something wrong. The Boy Scouts have survived just fine for decades without selling a single cookie.

I used to think Thin Mints were the end-all-be-all of cookie, and then I went to Australia and got some Arnott's Mint Slices. Dear God. Those are heaven in a cookie.

@bitslammer: Absolutely. From everything I've read about Sam Walton, he would have definitely drawn the line here.

thats almost as funny as the Kool Aid that they were selling last week that was 7 years past expiration?

@veg-o-matic: Plus, she's had to add edits to the entry since it was posted because, essentially, she has no idea what she's talking about.

@futuresuperbowlMVPJayCutler: Exactly. I don't shop at Walmart often but even if I saw these, I would think they were just imitation Keebler grasshoppers or something like that. Because of this rave review, i'll be on the lookout for them.

@cotr: how do i post a pic? I have pics!

I don't know whether to be mad at the obviously unfair competition or to be excited that Walmart has Thin Mints ...

Of course, there is a total of one Walmart inside the Beltway, so I'm mostly SOL.

When some cookie manufacturer comes out with the knock-off of the Samoas/Caramel Delites, you let me know. I will be there

ohhhhhh. Wal-Mart...
*shakes head sadly because it's just too damn easy*

The Boy Scouts sell popcorn, so does Wal-Mart (and Target, Hy-Vee, Kroger, etc...). Why don't the Boy Scouts raise hell about this?

I am sure Wal-Mart did not have a meeting, in which, they decided to develop a Thin Mint and Tagalong type cookie to bring down the Girl Scouts racket. >

Every Girl Scout cookie that I've purchased in the last 10 years has been from a booth set up in front of a Walmart. It seems to me Walmart has been very good to the organization.

Is Wal-Mart "ripping off" Girl Scout Cookies, or is it making delicious cookies that sell for less money, and a Girl Scout mom is freaking out? Shouldn't you revise the headline?

Wal-Mart's simply jealous of all the press that Petland is getting for drowning baby fluffy bunnies, so they decided to see Petland's bunnies and raise them by 2.8m Girl Scouts.

Well, it's not as if they won't be cutting corners on their house brand Thin Mints, anyway. With the reputation they have for getting even reputable brands to produce less well made versions of their products for sale as WalMart "Exclusives," I doubt they'll even contain real Girl Scouts.

@missdona: It's the wafer-thin slices of baby Koala in each cookie that give Arnott's their extra zing!

When Wal-Mart makes a comparable Carmel Delight, I will be all over that. Thin Mints, meh!

@winstonthorne: The only line he'd have drawn was right before sectioning in preparation for BBQing and eating.
But his crack PR department would have made it seem as though it was in the girls' best interest, so I see your point.

Don't get the outrage here. Does *anybody* actually pay $4 a box for Thin Mints and not realize that similar products already exist for 1/2 the price?

Fundraisers such as this are pretty much universally way overpriced items you can easily obtain somewhere else for much cheaper. But you buy them not because you want a good deal on cookies, but to support the girl scouts. The cookies are a bonus.

You guys are really scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for old and (un)creative ways to bash Wal-Mart.

America is a free market, capitalistic society. In capitalism, people decide what, when, and a what price to buy what the marketplace has to offer.
In a socialistic society an individual, committee, or entity decides what people should buy at what prices.
The outcry towards WalMart, at least for me, is an example of socialistic ideas (hidden in the "good" that Girl Scouts have to offer); this is a free market, and people can buy whatever cookies for any reason people want to buy them.
People can decide if they want to buy their "Thin Mints" from WalMart or the Girl Scouts or whatever company have similar cookies; plus, its very clear that the GS cookies serve more purposes than only fill your stomach with candy and flour (i.e. help the girls achieve their goals and get their badges).

walmart here lets girl scouts sell their cookies at the door.... no waiting around for orders to arrive. just little girls annoyingly pushing cookies as you come in and go out.

dh always buys three boxes... one for me, two for him.

OK, I hate to knock the Girl Scouts. Really! (Don't kick my shins, little pint-sized, green-clad, sash-wearing army, please don't kick my shins!) I remember Thin Mints and they were yummy.
I had a chance to buy several boxes (at work) a few months ago. By reflex, I read the ingredients. HFCS was the number two item. Since when did HFCS invade the goodness of Thin Mints? Let alone the long list of other Better Living Through Chemistry additions?
If any Girl Scout officials read this, please return Thin Mints to the natural, sugar-laden goodness that I remember from my (bruised shinned) youth.
The Girl Scouts stand for unblemished, wholesome purity - and their Thin Mints should do the same. Please, change back.

@MauriceCallidice: Yeah, but that is a pretty darned big "if" there, cowboy.

I really don't know what to say. I mean, the type of cookie they call Thin Mints isn;t exactly the property of the Girl Scouts, and somehow Walmart is damaging them or knocking them off by having a tasty version of that type of cookie for themselves? Ridiculous.

If anyone is faking Girl Scout cookies, it's Meijer. They have store brand versions of Tagalongs and Samoas for about $2.50 that look exactly like the GS ones (aside from the Samoa ones being totally ensconced in a thin layer of chocolate as opposed to just having the bottoms dipped). On top of that, the cookie boxes appear to be the same size and shape as the GS ones, the number of cookies in each box is the same, they're laid out in very similar, if not identical, plastic trays inside the box, and even the cookies per serving and carb counts per serving are identical. They even taste exactly like the GS versions I had earlier this year. I can't prove it but I think they are actually made by the GS bakery company and relabeled.

@Shawn4168: Sure, the Boy Scouts don't need cookies for funding. Then again, any Boy Scouts troop that's found to discriminate against their Atheist or gay-questioning youth earns a bounty from National. So it's not really kosher comparing the two revenue models.

@rpm773: That's so sad/funny that I laughed through my tears.

@aidenn: Seconded until the end of time.

@mbz32190: I hear there's a brand-new site called The Google or some-such, that lets you type things in and magically, it produces results on your computer screen. You should try it then let us know!

If Target was selling these, we probably wouldn't even hear about it.

@VA_White: GS aren't allowed to sell online because they'll be attacked by preverts. There was a story about some girl who took orders online but delivered in person to get around this and she made beaucoup bucks and they got mad at her... I think it was on Consumerist.