Shoppers may find the produce aisles a little bare at Pioneer Market and the Skagit Valley Food Co-op this weekend due to a cyberattack on a major organic food distributor.
According to a June 5 report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Rhode Island-based United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) discovered unauthorized activity on its IT systems and immediately took some systems offline as a containment measure. The disruption has impacted the company’s ability to fulfill and distribute customer orders, causing business interruptions nationwide.
Deliveries to big grocery stores like Whole Foods, as well as local markets and co-ops like Pioneer Market and Skagit Valley Co-op, were canceled and stores were unable to submit new orders.
UNFI is among the largest publicly traded wholesale suppliers of natural and organic foods in North America, according to the company’s website. It is the primary distributor for Skagit Valley Co-op in Mount Vernon, which reported in a Facebook post Tuesday that its Friday and Monday deliveries were canceled due to the outage. The majority of packaged grocery items sold at SVC come from UNFI and have been impacted by the disruption.
The post warned that shoppers may notice sparser shelves than usual.
In a June 10 email, Co-op General Manager Tony White wrote, “The immediate concern is a higher than normal out of stock on popular items. We currently are selling through our back stock on many items, but the longer this goes on, the more out stocks we will have.”
White was hopeful SVC would receive some products Friday based on previous orders the store placed. As of Thursday afternoon, the store was still unable to place new orders in the UNFI system, and as of publication, White has not confirmed if deliveries arrived today.
The US Food Chef Store in Burlington is also experiencing a temporary supply chain disruption. A company spokesperson confirmed “one of the third-party product suppliers to our Burlington Chef’s Store is experiencing a temporary supply chain disruption, which has temporarily impacted some scheduled product deliveries.” However, the spokesperson also said in an email that the company does not disclose the names of their suppliers.
According to a June 12 report from NBC, UNFI hasn’t set a definitive timeline for resuming distribution, although the company began gradually restoring some systems on June 12.
With 30,000 employees and more than 70 locations, UNFI is one of the largest food distributors in the United States and partners with about 250,000 restaurants and food service operators. UNFI’s website describes the company as a provider of “broad and innovative food offering” and “a comprehensive suite of e-commerce, technology, and business solutions.”
Staci Baird: staci@laconnercommunitynews.org is the managing editor for La Conner Community News.
