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 shopper Jim Noto. “Very disappointing especially at this time of year. It’s just a shame because they are losing a lot of customers.”
“Empty. Completely empty! Everything,” 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 happening?” said Instacart shopper Tina Diblasi. She plans to take a vacation from 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 and has placed signs in stores telling customers this was due to an outage in computer 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.
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 struggling company. They changed CEOs in September. They were already closing almost one in ten stores before that. This appears to be targeting 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.
Paul Burton
