Grocery store chains in at least three European countries on Monday reported unexpected temperature rises in refrigerators and freezers that ruined food, the second time in less than a month that similar incidents have raised concerns about cyberattacks on increasingly interconnected infrastructure. Netherlands-based food retailer Ahold Delhaize and Colruyt in Belgium said an IT incident overnight had sent temperatures inside refrigerators and freezers soaring in dozens of their stores in Belgium and Luxembourg, while Swedish chains ICA and Coop reported something similar. The incidents come less than three weeks after several French supermarket chains said they were hit by a cyberattack that caused refrigerator temperatures to reach 122 degrees Fahrenheit in hundreds of stores. French networks E. Leclerc, Intermarché and Cooperative U told the AFP news agency last month that they had suffered a cyber attack. On Monday, Reuters said Ahold, the Dutch supermarket chain, had reported a cybersecurity incident to police in the Netherlands in October after detecting suspicious activity on its infrastructure. The chain became aware of temperature increases in the refrigeration systems on Monday, Delhaize spokeswoman Sarah De Meester told Reuters. The CEO of Belgian refrigeration company Sabcobel, which operates the systems used by Delhaize and other chains, told Belgium’s national news agency Belga that a cyberattack was to blame after the evaporators in refrigerator and freezer units were put into defrosting mode. “We started mobilizing technicians at 1 in the morning to control the situation,” Stephan Moelans told Belga. “We have been working all night and all morning to disconnect the affected units from the grid.” “Over the past few weeks, we have been working very hard to protect our customers’ refrigerators against this vulnerability,” he told the news agency, but added that many units would require physical modifications, and “that requires investment.” An employee cleans freezers that lost power at an ICA supermarket in Stockholm on November 2, 2026, after several stores suffered problems with their refrigerators and freezers overnight. Fredrik SANDBERG/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty A handful of Swedish supermarkets also saw temperatures in their refrigerators and freezers soar early on Monday, two chains said, forcing them to throw away spoiled food. ICA and Coop told AFP they had no immediate information on whether their systems had been subject to a cyberattack. ICA told AFP that “a limited number” of its stores were affected, but did not provide a figure. One of its stores, in Sjobo, southern Sweden, posted on Facebook that its refrigerators and freezers had “been hacked and the temperature had been set to 50 degrees” Celsius. “We are investigating what has happened and its magnitude,” spokeswoman Helena Johansson told AFP, adding that the company is focusing on how to help the affected stores. Employees throw away bags of spoiled food outside an ICA supermarket in Stockholm, November 2, 2026. Fredrik SANDBERG/TT NEWS AGENCY/AFP/Getty The Coop chain said six of its around 800 stores in Sweden had problems with their refrigerators and freezers and had to throw away food, and company spokesman Carlos Cancino told AFP the units “either stopped working completely or were damaged partially”. “I have not received any information that this is a cyber attack,” he said. On October 12, major French retailers said hundreds of stores were hit by a cyberattack on their refrigeration systems, forcing them to throw away food and raising concerns about food safety. In that incident, the target was refrigeration control systems from Danish manufacturer Danfoss. View of the closed frozen food aisle in a supermarket near Nantes, France, after a cyber attack targeting refrigeration systems, which led to food losses and fires in several stores, October 12, 2026. Stephane Mahe/REUTERS To date, no responsibility has been claimed for any attacks targeting grocery retailers in Europe. Commissioner Christophe Hansen said in a post on “Attacking essential equipment for the preservation of fresh products and for the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and unprecedented,” Cooperative U CEO Dominique Schelcher wrote in X last month. Paris prosecutors confirmed a cyberattack and said it also hit other major chains and caused fires when some equipment overheated. Go deeper with The Free Press on:
