This year, the Girl Scouts are dealing with an unexpected problem of 15 million boxes of unsold cookies.
According to the 109-year-old organization, the coronavirus is to blame, not a drop in demand for Thin Mints. For safety reasons, when the pandemic progressed into the spring selling season, several troops abandoned their regular cookie stations.
Kelly Parisi, a Girl Scouts of the USA spokesman, said, “This is unfortunate, but given this is a girl-driven program and the majority of cookies are sold in-person, it was to be expected.”
Local councils and troops will be affected, as cookie sales are used to fund programming, travel, camps, and other activities. Every year, the Girl Scouts sell over 200 million boxes of cookies, worth roughly $800 million.
Despite using creative selling methods such as drive-thru booths and contact-free delivery, Rebecca Latham, CEO of Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails, claimed her council had 22,000 boxes left over at the end of the selling season in late April.
According to Latham, troops in her area sold 805,000 boxes of cookies last year and slightly around 600,000 this year. The council may not be able to invest in infrastructure improvements at its camps or fill some staff posts due to the gap, she said.
Through its Hometown Heroes program, which delivers cookies to health care professionals, firefighters, and others, the council is also urging individuals to buy boxes online. To further reduce the amount, it conducted one-day sales with organizations such as the New Mexico United soccer team.
According to Parisi, due to the pandemic, Girl Scouts of the USA has predicted reduced sales this year. However, coronavirus limits were continuously altering, and the 111 local councils’ cookie orders to bakers last fall were still excessively optimistic.
Coronavirus cases in the United States were still approaching their peak in early spring when troops traditionally set up booths to sell cookies in person. Hundreds of girls declined to offer cookies face to face. Even online sales and a delivery deal with Grubhub couldn’t make up for the shortfall.
As a result, as the cookie season came to a close, about 15 million boxes of cookies were left behind. The two bakers, Louisville, Kentucky-based Little Brownie Bakers and Brownsburg, Indiana-based ABC Bakers, continue to hold the majority of the boxes (about 12 million). The Girl Scout councils are in charge of another 3 million boxes, which they are scrambling to sell or donate. The cookies have a shelf life of 12 months.
The Girl Scouts won’t say how much money they lost due to the drop in sales, so it’s unknown how much money they lost. It isn’t the worst setback the cookie program has ever suffered. Because of wartime shortages of sugar, butter, and flour, the Girl Scouts were forced to switch from selling cookies to selling calendars during WWII.
However, the overabundance of cookies has exposed some simmering tensions within the Girl Scouts. Some local officials believe this year’s reduced sales may have been expected earlier because dwindling membership threatened cookie sales even before the outbreak. In 2019, around 1.7 million girls joined Girl Scouts, decreasing about 30% from 2009.
Agenia Clark, president, and CEO of Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, “Without girls, there is no cookie program. Unfortunately, it took a global pandemic to bring all the problems to the surface.”
Because Clark and other local executives computed their own sales predictions rather than depending on the direction from the national office, they avoided a cookie stockpile. Clark feels the Girl Scouts’ new technological platform isn’t accurately projecting enrollment decreases and their consequences. She sued the Girl Scouts of the USA in April, claiming that her council should not be forced to use the platform.
As troops tried to find safe methods to gather during the pandemic, Parisi recognized that enrollment dropped. However, she claims that those figures are already on the rise.
Other factors contributed to the drop in sales. Some local officials said they considered selling cookies this year but decided against it after reading an Associated Press piece tying child labor to the palm oil used in Girl Scout cookies.
Gina Verdibello, a troop leader in Jersey City, New Jersey, said her 21-member troop, including girls ranging in age from 10 to 15, opted to boycott the cookie program this year and staged a protest at city hall. Because of the palm oil issue, Verdibello knows of at least a dozen other troops who have decided not to sell.
“We want to sell cookies. It’s part of our thing. But this is putting kind of a damper on it,” said Verdibello’s, whose troops have continued to support events with donations from those who heard about the boycott.
Such boycotts, according to Parisi, aren’t common. However, she stated that the Girl Scouts are collaborating with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a non-profit organization that establishes environmental and social standards for the sector, to guarantee that growers adhere to the guidelines.
Local governments will not be held financially liable for the 12 million boxes that remain at the two bakeries in the end. According to the companies, the Girl Scouts are collaborating with Little Brownie Bakers and ABC Bakers to sell or donate cookies to food banks and the military. The bakers are unable to sell directly to grocers since doing so would jeopardize the annual cookie sales. They may, however, sell to institutional buyers such as jails.
According to Parisi, bakers and city governments have previously dealt with extra inventory as a result of meteorological calamities such as ice storms or tornadoes. This level, though, is unparalleled.
Some pivots, such as the alliance with Grubhub, she believes will be permanent. Girls, on the other hand, are looking forward to returning to their booths next year.
“Girl Scout cookie season isn’t just when you get to buy cookies,” she said. “It’s interacting with the girls. It’s Americana.”
