Mom Petitions Girl Scouts to Drop Nestle Partnership

As Monica Serratos walked through the supermarket with her two young daughters, one of them pointed to a drink bottle featuring the Girl Scouts logo alongside a familiar brown rabbit.

November 6, 2014 | Source: ABC News | by Sydney Lupkin

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As Monica Serratos walked through the supermarket with her two young daughters, one of them pointed to a drink bottle featuring the Girl Scouts logo alongside a familiar brown rabbit.

“They were like, ‘Oh Mom, can we get one?'” Serratos said.

It was one of the limited-edition, Girl-Scout-cookie-flavored drinks from Nestle Nesquik, she said.

Both Serratos’ daughters — first and third graders — are Girl Scouts, but when she saw nutrition information for the Nesquik cookie drinks, she was shocked to find that they contained 48 grams of sugar per bottle. The bottle contains two servings, but even then, a serving has more than twice the amount of sugar children are supposed to consume in a full day, according to recommendations from the American Heart Association.

Having recently taught her daughters’ Girl Scout troops about the hidden sugar in their juices and sodas, Serratos showed her daughters the label.

“Their faces literally dropped,” said Serratos, a California mother of four and a former bakery owner.

Serratos said she thinks the Girl Scouts should be helping to promote healthy habits, not marketing sugary drinks to children. So she started a petition on Change.org to convince Girl Scouts to end the partnership.

In response, a Nestle spokesperson told ABC News. “Nesquik has a limited licensing partnership with Girl Scouts USA. It borrows the fun and flavor equity of Girl Scout cookies and applies it to a 14 oz. ready-to-drink package made with the adult consumer in mind.”

But Serratos doesn’t think the drinks are for adults.

“It’s not being marketed toward adults,” she said. “We’re not interested in this little brown bunny on the bottle.”


PHOTO: Nestle’s Girl Scouts inspired Thin Mint Nesquik milk.

Serratos said she loves the positive things the Girl Scouts represent, which is why she enrolled her daughters and leads two troops, but she thinks the organization falls short when it comes to sugary foods and drinks. Even cookie and candy sales are things she’d like to steer away from.

She’s not alone. More than 6,000 people have signed her petition.

Dr. Deborah Cohen, a senior natural scientist at RAND and author of “A Big Fat Crisis: The Hidden Influences Behind the Obesity Epidemic — and How We Can End It,” said food marketing trains consumers — adults, as well as kids — to want items that are bad for them by finding ways to associate the foods with positive feelings.