Girl Scouts have over 15 million leftover boxes of cookies, after pandemic slows in-person sales

The Girl Scouts of the U.S.A, among the country's most established institutions, has also bee hit hard by the COVID-19 – having a surplus of roughly 15 million boxes of cookies after in-person sale were effectively halted by the pandemic.

"Given that a majority of cookies are sold in person by girls at booths or other face-to-face methods, a decrease in sales was to be expected," Girl Scouts spokesperson Kelly Parsi said in a statement. "It's exceedingly rare to have significant excess inventory, but the pandemic greatly impacted our cookie program."

The roughly 109-year-old group also reports the pandemic has resulted in a decline in membership that has been occurring over the past decade.

The surplus boxes of cookies are available online, though 12 million of them have yet to leave the warehouse where they were made, according to a statement Tuesday by the Girl Scouts.

In certain parts of the country some Girl Scout troops are facing bigger hits than others as a result of the pandemic, according to The New York Times.

The organization has handled the surplus of cookies by donating extra boxes to the military and emergency medical workers.

In January, Girl Scouts announced it was teaming up with GrubHub, and this year the organization has already debuted several new cookies.