Ahold Delhaize, the multinational retailer and wholesale company behind Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant Food and Hannaford in the United States, said it is dealing with a security issue in its network that has forced it to take some systems offline. The company confirmed the incident in a press release, saying its teams are assessing and mitigating the problem and that its stores remain open and serving customers. It described the protection of its infrastructure, in the interest of customers, associates and partners, as a top priority, and apologized for any inconvenience caused to customers and partners.
The disruption is being felt across several of the company's brands. Employees at Stop & Shop, the American regional supermarket chain, have had trouble reaching their schedules and pay stubs. Customers in the Netherlands have been unable to use websites, apps and customer service platforms at Albert Heijn, Etos and Gall & Gall, and the same digital services have been unavailable at Delhaize in Belgium.
In the United States, an internal memo shared by Food Lion employees labeled the event an IT outage and warned staff that a store may be unable to shop, stage or hand off orders. An Ahold Delhaize spokesperson was not immediately available to answer questions about whether corporate and store systems were both affected, whether disruptions reached stores worldwide, or whether any devices were encrypted, when BleepingComputer sought comment.
Ahold Delhaize operates more than 9,400 local stores across Europe, the United States and Indonesia, employs nearly 400,000 people, and serves about 60 million customers each week through physical locations and online. It reported yearly net sales of more than $104 billion in 2024. Its brand portfolio includes Delhaize, Maxi, Mega Image, Albert, bol, Alfa Beta, Etos, Gall & Gall and Profi in Europe, alongside Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Giant Food and Hannaford in the American market.
The incident is the second major cybersecurity event to hit the retailer in recent years. In November 2024, a ransomware attack on the company's U.S. systems stole the personal, financial and health information of more than 2.2 million individuals, an intrusion claimed by the ransomware group INC Ransom.
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