Thin Mints? Fat chance.
A couple of Evanston-based Girl Scout troops sold out of the perennial favorite Wednesday morning, and there are no more Thin Mints available from the baker
“It’s absolutely a supply chain issue,” says troop leader Jill Velen. Velen’s 10-year-old daughter Maddy and several other girls were doing a brisk cookie business on the Sheridan Road sidewalk in front of Northwestern.
And the last 50 boxes of the crunchy, chocolatey Mints were gone by late morning.
“Thin Mints are the most popular, almost the ‘founder’ cookie,” Velen says. “Usually we could get more, but not now.”
Velen says the supply chain woes, namely a combination of labor and ingredient shortages, and perhaps transportation delays as well, are plaguing the Kentucky-based bakery that makes the cookies.
Velen says the Evanston girls in troops 45676 and 41150 were able to track down four cases of Mints, the last ones they could locate in the entire Greater Chicago/Northwest Indiana Girl Scout Council.
They were in “mint” condition and sold like hotcakes, or … like Thin Mints.
The shortage is also cutting the cookie selling season from three months down to about six weeks.
The local troops were able to sell about 3,000 boxes over that period, and with the supply of Thin Mints running thin, customers were turning to other treats such as Samoas and Tagalongs.
And soon, the non-Mints will be gone as well.
Velen expects that by the end of Wednesday, every last box they tried to sell near NU will be bought at $5 each, and that’s it. No more. The demand may still exist. The supply does not.
The Girl Scouts first began selling cookies in 1917. We found that out from the Scouts of the USA website, which states their site “uses cookies to provide you with the best possible experience.”
But those “cookies” are probably not Thin Mints.