Overview
- The company detected suspicious activity and proactively took systems offline on Sunday, which made the Albert Heijn app, website and customer service unavailable and halted some distribution centres.
- On the fourth day of the outage the retailer said distribution centres were being brought back into operation and deliveries of non‑perishable goods had restarted, while the website and app remained down and online orders through Thursday were cancelled with refunds promised.
- Reporters and store staff across multiple cities reported visibly emptier shelves for fresh items such as fruit, vegetables and dairy, and employees said they were spreading limited stock across shelves to mask gaps.
- Ahold Delhaize and outside security experts say the investigation into cause and scope is ongoing, there are currently no signs that customer or staff data were stolen, and analysts report the disruption followed suspicious activity traced to abroad that looked like an attempted intrusion.
- Industry estimates put direct losses in the millions of euros and the IMF has used the episode to warn that growing cyber threats, including risks from AI, can cause major supply and financial disruption, raising reputational and online‑sales risks for the group.