A major supplier to Whole Foods said it has shut down deliveries after it was hacked – leading to fears of empty store shelves.
United Natural Foods, a $31 billion distributor of natural and organic products, said in a regulatory filing on Monday that it “identified unauthorized activity in our systems” and has notified law enforcement while it conducts an investigation.
The Rhode Island-based company, also known as UNFI, discovered the issue last week and took “some systems offline while we investigate,” according to the filing.
“We are assessing the unauthorized activity and working to restore our systems to safely bring them back online.”
The company reached out to its retail customers on Saturday and Sunday informing them that there will be no deliveries on Monday, adding that it did not know when the disruption would end, sources told The Post.
“It’s bringing the company to a standstill with no orders generated and no orders coming in,” said Steve Schwartz, director of sales for the Morton Williams grocery store chain in New York City.
Among the items that Morton Williams’ 20 stores receive from UNFI are frozen and dairy items, including Stoneyfield yogurts as well as Sanpellegrino and La Croix sparkling waters.
The chain has already contacted other distributors to supply these and other items if the disruption is prolonged, Schwartz said.
But others were more immediately impacted.
“I work at a Diamond store in a scratch bakery and they aren’t even sending us flour, cake blanks or brown butter cookies,” wrote one Reddit user on Sunday. “We’re trying to figure out if we need to call all our customers who have special orders in this week, because of course its graduation week too.”
Another bakery business posted “we’re out of components to make the cakes and tarts so we’ll have an empty case til we get our delivery. We sold out of a lot last night so today will be $0 cake sales 🙃Can’t do much production. Basically will bake off what we have for the floor until something else comes in.”
A person who identified as a UNFI employee posted, “Our systems went down nationwide around 3:30 pm last Friday. At my location they have been calling us in every day since to come pick y’all’s groceries in hopes that our systems come back on. So far that has not been the case. That’s all we know, corporate isn’t telling us s–t.”
Whole Foods did not immediately comment.
UNFI is scheduled to announce its third quarter results on June 10. Its shares are down 8.5% on Monday to about $25.
“It’s a mystery as of yet what is going to happen and how long it’s going to be until things are back to normal,” wrote another Reddit user who identified as a UNFI employee. “Was told by the branch VP that even when they can start to get back on track it will have to be done in phases. So it’s gonna be a while for things to be back on track fully.”
Victoria’s Secret delayed its earnings release last week after a cyber attack resulted in its website going dark for several days last month.
“What we are seeing with UNFI and, just last week, with Victoria’s Secret, reflects a growing trend: threat actors are targeting critical infrastructure and high-traffic consumer platforms for maximum disruption and financial leverage,” said Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity expert at NordVPN.
