Complete Meals informed its staff that the continuing outages and disruptions at its main distributor, United Pure Meals (UNFI), might take “a number of days to resolve.”
The Amazon-owned retail large informed employees in an inner communication, seen by TechCrunch, that UNFI was experiencing a “nationwide expertise system outage,” which UNFI has for its half described as a cybersecurity incident.
Complete Meals mentioned within the communication to employees that the cyberattack is affecting UNFI’s “capability to pick and ship merchandise from their warehouses,” and that this can “influence our regular supply schedules and product availability.”
The missive to employees included directions to restrict communications with prospects. The “solely single accredited buyer speaking level” that Complete Meals staff can share with prospects, in line with the communication, is that the grocery large is having “momentary provide challenges.”
When reached by TechCrunch, Complete Meals spokesperson Nathan Cimbala mentioned: “We’re working to restock our cabinets as rapidly as potential and apologize for any inconvenience this may occasionally have triggered for purchasers.”
UNFI has not responded to TechCrunch’s request for touch upon Tuesday, nor given a timeline for its restoration. Complete Meals’ spokesperson didn’t say how the corporate reached its declare that the state of affairs might resolve in just a few days.
UNFI is among the largest meals distributors in North America, supplying grocery items and contemporary produce to greater than 30,000 shops and supermarkets throughout the U.S. and Canada. The corporate disclosed the cyberattack on Monday in a submitting with federal regulators, and UNFI’s chief govt, Sandy Douglas, informed traders Tuesday that the corporate took its whole community offline on Friday after detecting the intrusion.
The corporate additionally on Tuesday reported $8.1 billion in web gross sales within the quarter ended Could 3, 2025.
As we reported earlier Tuesday, TechCrunch has heard anecdotal experiences of empty cabinets at some Complete Meals shops and different grocery shops reliant on UNFI.
A Complete Meals retailer visited by this reporter on Tuesday displayed notices in a number of aisles saying that the shop was experiencing an unspecified “momentary out of inventory subject” for some merchandise.
A lot of the downstream real-world influence on grocery shops and their prospects is probably not seen till later this week.
Are you aware extra concerning the cyberattack at UNFI? Are you a company buyer affected by the disruption? You possibly can securely contact this reporter through encrypted message at zackwhittaker.1337 on Sign.