Whole Foods warns of shortages after cyberattack at its primary distributor UNFI

Summary

Whole Foods told its employees that the ongoing outages and disruptions at its primary distributor, United Natural Foods (UNFI), may take “several days to resolve.” The Amazon-owned retail giant told staff in an internal communication, seen by TechCrunch, that UNFI was experiencing a “nationwide technology system outage,” which UNFI has for its part described as a cybersecurity incident. Whole Foods said in the communication to staff that the cyberattack is affecting UNFI’s “ability to select and ship products from their warehouses,” and that this will “impact our normal delivery schedules and product availability.” The missive to staff included instructions to limit communications with customers. The “only single approved customer talking point” that Whole Foods employees can share with customers, according to the communication, is that the grocery giant is having “temporary supply challenges.” When reached by TechCrunch, Whole Foods spokesperson Nathan Cimbala said: “We are working to restock our shelves as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused for customers.” The company did not say how the company reached its claim that the situation may resolve in a few days. For its part, UNFI said Wednesday that it was making progress in restoring its systems. “We continue working steadily to safely restore our systems and provide the services our customers and suppliers know and expect from us,” UNFI spokesperson Grace Turiano told TechCrunch. “As of today, we’re gradually bringing our ordering and receiving capabilities back online, with the goal of further increasing our capacity over the coming days.” UNFI is one of the largest food distributors in North America, supplying grocery goods and fresh produce to more than 30,000 stores and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada. The company disclosed the cyberattack on Monday in a filing with federal regulators, and UNFI’s chief executive, Sandy Douglas, told investors this week that the...