Albert Heijn says its stores unaffected by Belgian freezer incident

Albert Heijn says its supermarket freezers and refrigerators have not been affected by an IT incident disrupting cooling systems at Belgian stores, where temperatures in some freezers have risen.

The Dutch supermarket chain said it had checked its equipment and found no similar problem. Its Belgian sister chain, Delhaize, has been dealing with the incident since Monday. At least 40 Delhaize supermarkets have been affected, according to the report, as have stores in other Belgian chains and in Sweden.

Spar in Belgium also reported problems with cooling systems on Monday morning. A spokeswoman said Spar stores in the Netherlands had not been affected.

Albert Heijn and Delhaize are both part of Ahold Delhaize, which was hit by a cyberattack last month. That incident led the group to take several websites and apps offline as a precaution and disrupted distribution centres, leaving some supermarket shelves empty. Police and prosecutors had not opened a criminal investigation into that earlier incident, citing the absence of a police report and the company’s statement that no sensitive customer data had been taken, as reported earlier.