KAUKAUNA, Wis. (NBC 26) -- It's a cookie conundrum. Right now, the Girl Scouts have about 15 million unsold boxes of cookies across the United States, but locally Girl Scout leaders say troops still managed to hit their mark in 2021.
This spring it was a rare sight to see Girl Scouts pushing their sweet products in a public setting. Even though for most troops, it's the preferred method.
"It's more fun to see people face to face," says seven-year-old Lacey Hansen of Kaukauna.
Hansen has been a Girl Scout for two years now, and despite the challenges of selling the majority of her cookies online or over the phone this year she still saw an increase in sales.
"I sold 500 this year and 400 last year."
But an uptick in sales for the 7-year-old didn't translate to an increase in sales across the board for the Girl Scout's organization. In fact, right now, the organization is sitting on 15 million unsold boxes.
So how is northeastern Wisconsin doing in terms of extra cookies? Well, Melissa Loest of the Girl Scouts of the Northwestern Great Lakes says sales dropped about 25% in 2021, from about 2 million boxes sold in 2020 to just about 1.5 million in 2021. Fortunately, though, Loest says they don't have any leftovers.
"We are completely out of cookies. We are out until 2022."
Loest says they were preparing for sales to be down this spring and so they purchased what they needed from sister organizations a bit later in the game than they are used to.
"We know as an organization as a whole across the country that councils were going to have a surplus of cookies so instead of placing our final orders from the bakers, we actually placed them from our sister councils and purchased their surplus inventory."
And while the bad news is, there's not a stockpile of cookies somewhere in northeast Wisconsin for sale, there is some good news too; countless girls managed to sell the cookies in a new way.
"Last year we were in person and this year we were virtual," adds Hansen.
And those sales helped countless kids head to day camp just last week, to remind them that even during a pandemic they can still be kids.
"It's more fun to see people face to face," adds Hansen.
