Girl Scout Cookie Sales Crumble Amid COVID Pandemic
MIAMI (CBSMiami/CNN) -- The sale of Girl Scout cookies across South Florida and the rest of the nation crumbled as the organization faces 15 million unsold boxes due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's exceedingly rare to have significant excess inventory but the pandemic greatly impacted our cookie program, despite demand for cookies remaining strong," Girl Scouts said.
The Girl Scouts usually make around $800 million each year selling 200 million boxes of cookies. It won't say how many cookie boxes were sold this year. But 15 million boxes remain at local councils or at the two bakers authorized to make them.
Those councils and bakers are trying to sell or donate boxes that are left.
Girl Scouts of the USA said that 100% of the proceeds from each and every cookie purchase "stay local with the troop and its council to power essential leadership programming throughout the year, so we did everything we could to mitigate those losses to recoup lost revenue in addition to helping the bakers sell through their inventory."
In years past, Girl Scout troops sold cookies outside grocery stories, libraries and in public parks. But with the pandemic, many troops went digital-only. Some even took to social media to advertise cookies. The organization also partnered with Grubhub in January to sell the cookies safely.
The extra cookie boxes aren't available for individual purchase, but anyone interested can buy cookies that will be donated to first responders, food banks and "other worthy causes," the organization said.
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