Good Scouts in the supermarket

The troops were out in force at Farm Fresh.

For three consecutive weekends in March, the retailer donated space inside each of its 36 stores to the Girl Scouts to hawk their cookies. The girls set up tables where they peddled Do/Si/Dos, Trefoils, Tagalongs, Aloha Chips, All Abouts, Ole Ole, Samoas, and the ever-popular Thin Mints.

"We're very involved with the community, and we partner with different groups," says Susan Mayo, v.p. of consumer affairs and public relations at Virginia Beach, Va.-based Farm Fresh. "The Girl Scouts came to us and asked if we could partner with them," she says, adding that this was the third year Farm Fresh teamed up with the scouts. In addition to providing prominent floor space, Farm Fresh started in February to devote most of the space on the front of its grocery sacks to publicizing the event.

Cookies were sold between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, and were a huge hit with shoppers. This year's figures aren't in yet, but last year area troops sold some 1,479,000 boxes of cookies, with about 20 percent of the volume—some 295,800 boxes—being sold at the Farm Fresh cookie booths. At $3 a box, that comes to over $887,000 raised for the local council.

In addition to the funds, the girls also garnered some business sense. "The scouts were briefed on behavior in the store and how to interact with customers," says Mayo. "They are learning the skill sets of customer relations, how to ask for donations, and how not to be overly aggressive if a customer turns them down."

"The girls also learn goal setting because they figure out how many boxes they would like to sell that day," says Lina Valencia, product sales director of the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast in Chesapeake, Va., which encompasses local troops from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach. "They learn sales and marketing techniques, how to approach the customers, and how to behave themselves by staying behind the table and not doing any shouting or calling out."

Aside from donating booth space, Valencia says, Farm Fresh provided each participating girl with a gift certificate. "They also give us monetary help. We are really appreciative of all the help and support that we get from Farm Fresh," she says.

Although shoppers were stocking up on Girl Scout cookies, they weren't neglecting the Oreos, Milano, and Pecan Sandies over in grocery. "We really didn't notice any depreciable sales in bakery and grocery," says Mayo. "It is more of an incremental, feel-good type of purchase. Who can turn down a Girl Scout?"

Apparently Farm Fresh can't, because it is partnering with the Colonial Coast for other projects. "We're gearing up to do a major Girl Scouting for Food drive in the fall, and we've supported other initiatives and things that they've done," Mayo says.

—R.T.