As grocery shortages persist, UNFI says it's recovering from cyberattack
Food distribution giant United Natural Foods (UNFI) said it is making 'significant progress' in recovering from a cyberattack that occurred almost two weeks ago, as grocery stores across North America reliant on the distributor continue to report food shortages.
UNFI said in an update on Sunday that it was restoring its electronic ordering systems, which its customers use to place orders for their grocery stores and supermarkets.
The company, which provides more than 30,000 stores across the United States and Canada with fresh produce and other products, was hit by a cyberattack on June 5, which the company disclosed several days later.
UNFI has not yet described the nature of the cyberattack, though it told investors last week that it had shut down its entire network to contain the incident. The ongoing outage is preventing the company from fulfilling and distributing customer orders at scale.
One of the largest grocers affected is Whole Foods, which relies on UNFI as its 'primary distributor.' Several Whole Foods stores, including one visited by TechCrunch last week and others in the New York area, are experiencing shelf shortages amid the UNFI outages. One employee at a Whole Foods in California told TechCrunch about the supply issues at their store, saying they had not seen some products for days.
Whole Foods previously told TechCrunch that it was working to restore its shelves 'as quickly as possible,' but did not say when shipments would return to normal.
People working at local grocery stores and big-chain supermarkets alike have told TechCrunch that they continue to experience disruption of varying degrees. Some said that other distributors are providing some supplies, while others are still reporting issues with ordering products from UNFI.
The outages are also affecting grocery stores run by the U.S. Defense Department for active duty personnel and retired veterans. One employee at a grocery store run by the Defense Commissary Agency said they were seeing empty shelves and delayed shipments.
Kevin Robinson, a spokesperson for the Defense Commissary Agency, confirmed the UNFI cyberattack was affecting dozens of the agency's stores.
'This incident has affected deliveries across multiple grocery chains, including 53 Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) stores,' said Robinson. 'The DeCA supply chain team has worked closely with UNFI to implement manual workarounds that have effectively minimized in-store disruptions.'
UNFI has not yet provided a timeline for recovery.
Do you know more about the cyberattack at UNFI? Are you a corporate customer affected by the disruption? You can securely contact this reporter via encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Signal
First published on June 16, and updated June 17 with an update from the U.S. Defense Department.
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