Supply chain issues have caused a delay in this year’s Girl Scout cookie production, delaying the products by as much as a month.
Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York, which encompasses 15 counties, including Columbia and Greene counties, expects the girls will have cookies in late April.
“Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York has been informed by its cookie bakery (a national company) of a delay in cookie production and delivery due to a problem getting an ingredient as a result of the current supply chain issues,” Girl Scouts of Northeastern New York CEO Brenda Episcopo said in a statement. “We are confident that all cookies will be in our girls’ hands beginning April 23 and delivered shortly thereafter to our neighbors, families and friends. Booth sales are scheduled to begin April 30.”
Booth sales were slated to begin in late March, according to the online Cookie Finder App.
“We know that Girl Scout cookies are something that our communities treasure and, while this delay is unfortunate and unavoidable, it is providing a further opportunity for Girl Scouts to demonstrate their communication skills and resiliency,” Episcopo said. “We look forward to getting the cookies delivered beginning April 23. We thank our customers and communities for their patience and support of our local troops and girls.”
The Girl Scout Cookie Program is the largest girl-led business in the world, according to a 2017 Girl Scouts of the USA fact sheet. Girl Scouts sell about 200 million boxes of cookies valued at about $800 million each cookie season as of 2017.
Nicolle O’Donnell has been a Girl Scout troop leader for three years. She leads Valatie-based Troops 5502 and 5548. This year she also became the cookie manager for her service unit as well.
Her troops may benefit from the delay in cookies this year, she said.
“Normally, sales start off with a bang,” O’Donnell said. “We get our initial orders in. We have National Cookie Week. That’s when we can pick up some boxes and have a cookie booth. So we were able to hold our cookie booth on National Cookie Weekend, and that was exciting, and then that’s when we started hearing that we might have some setbacks with initial orders.”
Both cookie booths O’Donnell’s troops held on National Cookie Weekend, Feb. 18-20, sold out, she said. They were limited to 15 cases for each booth. One case contains 12 boxes of cookies.
“Our goal is to sell 200 boxes, that’s like our average, but we have girls that sell 600, 700, 800 boxes of cookies,” O’Donnell said. “The numbers can definitely get up there.”
The upside of a delay in receiving cookies is that it pushes the cookie season back a few weeks, O”Donnell said.
“So we actually have more time to sell cookies this year,” O’Donnell said. “We anticipate we’re actually going to benefit from this.”
The cookie booth season will now run from April 30 to May 30, O’Donnell said.
Cookie sales help troops raise money for activities, materials and supplies, and allows girls to attend summer camps.
Robin Wickham-Drobner leads two Coxsackie-Athens troops, 1237 and 1503.
“We have some understanding community members,” Wickham-Drobner said. “They don’t mind waiting for the cookies because it’s for the girls and they are still going to get them and enjoy them.”
She said that while it could take up to a month to get cookies, it does not mean the cookies will not come in sooner. Cookies could arrive before the council’s anticipated date.
“On the bright side, at least it will be warmer outside for our cookie booths and the girls wont freeze,” Wickham-Drobner said.
March weather can be cold for girls standing outside selling cookies at booth sales and will likely be warmer during April for this year’s delayed booth sales.
“I’m a very, very active cookie sales person,” Wickham-Drobner said. “My troops in total sell about 3,500. One year we sold over 5,000 before COVID. We do a lot of cookie booths, usually about 40. We hope to sell at least 5,000 this year.”
Wickham-Drobner’s troops typically sell about half their cookies through pre-orders the girls take and about half are sold in person at booth sales.
Wickham-Drobner remembers the last delay in cookies was in 2020 because of the pandemic.
The sale of cookies to finance activities for troops started as early as 1917, according to the Girl Scouts website, five years after Juliette Gordon Low founded Girl Scouts in the United States.
Early cookie sales involved the girls themselves making the cookies to sell. In 1922 American Girl magazine, published by the Girl Scouts, featured an article by Florence E. Neil, a local director in Chicago, Illinois.
The article contained a cookie recipe given to the council’s 2,000 Girl Scouts. Neil estimated the approximate cost of ingredients for six to seven dozen cookies to be 26 to 36 cents. The cookies, she suggested, could be sold by troops for 25 or 30 cents per dozen.
Today, cookies are produced by two commercial bakers licensed by the Girl Scouts — ABC Bakers and Little Brownie Bakers, the company that produces the cookies sold throughout most of New York.
