By Emma Nitzsche
Nationwide shortages are leaving consumers frustrated, but unlike many other businesses, the Girl Scouts of America faces a very different problem: a massive surplus of cookies. The 109-year-old organization is scrambling to sell over 15 million boxes of cookies before they expire in a year.
Girl Scouts said it faced two critical challenges during the pandemic that lead to the surplus. The first was a lack of membership due to limited meetings and sponsored events. The most significant factor was the absence of cookie booths at grocery stores and a temporary ban on door-to-door sales.
“It’s exceedingly rare to have a significant excess of inventory, but the pandemic greatly impacted our cookie program. Given that a majority of cookies are sold in person by girls at booths or other face-to-face methods, a decrease in sales was to be expected,” Kelly Parisi, a spokesperson for the Girl Scouts, told the Seattle Times.
Typically, scouts sell just under 200 million boxes of cookies per season, generating a profit of approximately $800 million. Local troops depend on the cookie funds for travel, camps, and other community activities. Despite a projected decrease in cookie sales, many troop leaders felt optimistic about their troops’ sales abilities and requested the same number of boxes ordered in a regular year. But as time went on, it was apparent that sales were down, and there would be plenty of cookie boxes leftover.
Known for their innovation under challenging circumstances, the Girls Scouts partnered with the food delivery service Grubhub in January. The company waived all fees for the cookie delivery to make the option accessible to consumers without taking any proceeds from the troops. In addition to Grubhub, the Girl Scouts encouraged their customers to place online orders. In the northern California region, online sales accounted for 72% of the overall sales this year, compared with 18% last year.
Today, 12 million of the 15 million boxes have not left the bakery. Troops across America have another three million, and they are frantically working to sell or donate the boxes before the cookies expire.
The CEO of Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, Rebecca Latham, said her troop had 22,000 boxes left over at the end of selling season in late spring. She noted that the shortfall means that her troop may not have the funds to invest in infrastructure improvement at its camps or fill some staff positions.
Although the surplus cookies are worth roughly $60 million, local troops won’t be financially responsible. The two main bakeries, Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers, said they are working with girls to donate the extra boxes to the military, food banks, and emergency medical workers. In addition, plans are also underway to partner with local sports teams for one-day sales on game day. A city in Georgia has even used boxes of cookies to incentivize people to get the vaccine — an initiative they call “Samoas for Shots.”
