Supply chain shortages hit New Mexico Girl Scout’s cookie sales

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – We’ve been talking about supply chain issues for months. Higher prices at the grocery store, items out of stock and now, and now a shortage of Girl Scout cookies.

This time last year, the Girl Scouts of New Mexico trails had 22,000 boxes of cookies left over, and troops were struggling to sell all of them during a global pandemic.

“Last year it was a challenge of ‘how do we get cookies out to the public,’ um under these circumstances. This year we don’t have cookies to get out to them,” said Girl Scouts of New Mexico Trails CEO Rebecca Latham.

And that’s because, after a tough 2021, there’s been a huge demand along with supply chain issues.

“There’s a global peanut butter shortage. So you know, Tagalongs do-si-dos, those are impacted. They’re the new cookie, the Adventurefuls had – they had some production challenges with those. And so it really has been just a bunch of things that have led to this situation,” said Latham.

Which is why you likely haven’t seen many cookie booths outside your grocery stores. Or maybe, your pre-ordered cookies haven’t arrived at your doorstep.

“When the Delta variant and the Omicron were both really heavy here in the states, they were experiencing the same labor shortages that we were, and so that really limited their ability to be able to stay on track for all of the cookies,” Latham said.

Right now, central and northern New Mexico Girl Scouts are waiting on more than a hundred thousand boxes – orders that won’t get in until after their expected end date of March 20.

“We gave the girls the option. Do you guys want to shut things down and lower your sales goals and or do you want to keep going and they said, ‘we really want to keep selling.’"

The deadline for cookie sales has been extended through April 10, so expect to see those booths back out in a few weeks.

“The Girl Scout Cookie program is really built on teaching them real life lessons and entrepreneurship. They learn business skills like marketing, customer service, financial literacy, now they’re learning it’s like the next level now they’re learning supply chain logistics, uh economics supply and demand,” said Latham.

And they hope New Mexicans will keep up that high demand once the scouts get their supply.

If you’re looking for cookies, you can find a local scout or booth near you through a cookie finder at girlscouts.org.