Girl Scouts everywhere are faced with a wild problem this year: They're left with way too many boxes of cookies. And before you ask—no, I'm not joking.
Though the 109-year-old organization introduced a new french toast-inspired cookie for the season, that apparently wasn't enough to get customers to buy out each troop's stash. According the global organization, they were left with 15 million boxes of unsold cookies and the reason is not because troops weren't trying to hit their goals; it's because COVID-19 heavily impacted their sales.
Since the ongoing pandemic saw a spike in numbers during the spring selling season, many of the Girl Scout troops and councils throughout the nation opted to forego traditional cookie booths for safer options. As a result of this, however, both Girl Scout councils and troops will feel the financial impact of the lack of sales as programming, travel, camps, and day-to-day activities are dependent upon the revenue brought in from cookie sales.
Even with online sales and a partnership to offer delivery with Grubhub, the sales for Girl Scout cookies this year were down from the regular estimate of 200 million boxes of cookies per year. Since selling cookies does best as an in-person act, Girl Scouts of the USA spokeswoman Kelly Parisi, said that a decline is sales "was to be expected."
For many councils and troops, hundreds, thousands, and even millions of boxes of cookies are left on shelves and scrambling to be sold and/or donated before their expiration date. And since each variety of cookie only lasts for 12 months, they'll most likely have to put in extra work as troop memberships begin to rebound after the past year's COVID-ridden decline.
