FRAMINGHAM – Stop & Shop stores in Massachusetts had empty shelves Monday due to a cyberattack.
Empty Stop & Shop shelves
People who entered the store, ready to stock up before Thanksgiving, had to leave empty-handed.
“I can’t buy carrots. I can’t buy lettuce. The vegetables are thin and the meat section is weak,” said buyer Jim Noto. “Very disappointing especially at this time of year. It’s just a shame because they’re losing a lot of customers.
“Empty. Completely empty! All of it,” said Maryanne Lambert, who was only able to get half of her grocery list.
“The products just weren’t there. It was horrible. What’s going on?’” said Instacart shopper Tina Diblasi. She is considering taking a vacation from the delivery service until the shelves are restocked again.
Shoppers said they were going to find another store to get their essentials before the next holiday.
Cybersecurity problem
Stop & Shop says this is a cybersecurity issue affecting its parent company, Ahold Delhaize, and that they have placed signs in stores telling customers this was due to an outage in IT systems.
“While there may be limited inventory for some products, we are working to restock our shelves and expect item availability to continue to improve over the coming days,” the store said in a statement.
Ahold Delhaize says it is investigating the matter and has informed law enforcement of the violation. They take some systems offline to protect them.
“This issue and subsequent mitigation measures have impacted certain Ahold Delhaize USA brands and services, including a number of pharmacies and certain e-commerce operations,” Ahold Delhaize said in a statement. statement.
Stop & Shop announced its closure in July 32 stores in five states who were “underperforming”. Seven of these stores were in Massachusetts. The company donated all remaining food from closed supermarkets to food shelters located near their stores.
“Stop and Shop is a company in difficulty. It changed CEO in September. They close almost one in ten stores even before that. It does appear to target their financial transaction systems so they can’t handle payments, but honestly, everything is vulnerable,” said William Masters, a professor of food economics and policy at Tufts University’s Friedman School. of Nutrition.
