The websites and apps for some of the most popular grocery store chains in the United States have been shut down following a cyberattack, the stores’ parent corporation announced.
Chains affected by the attack are Giant, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Food Lion and Hannaford. All are owned by Dutch parent corporation Ahold Delhaize. According to the corporation, the five grocery chains account for over 1,000 stores across the U.S.
Visits to the website for the American chains returned similar results showing the website and app were down and were being "restored to service as quickly as possible."
"Ahold Delhaize is experiencing a security issue within its network. Our teams are taking steps to assess and mitigate the issue. This includes taking some
systems offline to help protect them. At this time, our stores are open and serving customers," the Dutch corporation said in a statement. "Protecting our infrastructure in the best interest of our customers, associates and partners is a top priority. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused customers and partners."
USA TODAY has reached out to the Dutch corporation for further information on the attack, whether their customers’ data was impacted and when the websites might begin working again.
According to the messages posted on the grocery websites, shoppers can still buy groceries at the chains via Instacart, DoorDash, and Uber Eats.
The cyberattack comes at a point where more and more Americans are shopping for groceries online. According to research published in June by Capital One, Americans spent $257.5 billion on groceries in 2024, up from $61.68 billion in 2019. Projected spending for 2025 was $327.7 billion. Over half of Americans bought online at some point in 2024 and nearly a fifth buy groceries online at least once per month, the study says.
Ahold Delhaize also owns thousands of stores across Europe and 275 in Indonesia. Websites for the company's brands outside the U.S. appear unaffected.
Disruptions to online grocery shopping in the U.S. also come as grocery shoppers and store owners in France also faced a severely destructive cyberattack where hackers raised the temperatures of refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of stores to as high as 122 degrees.
The attack in France left whole cartfuls of food spoiled and sparked fires in places.
Contributing by Reuters.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Online grocery shoppers in a pickle following cyberattack
