Cybersecurity Issue Stalls Ordering At Connecticut Stop & Shop Stores

CONNECTICUT — After a hit-or-miss Monday — and in some cases on the weekend — with some items because of a cybersecurity issue that has affected ordering, Stop & Shop supermarkets statewide were hoping for a quick resolution this week.

On Friday, officials from Stop & Shop's parent company, Ahold Delhaize USA, said they recently detected a cybersecurity issue within its U.S. network.

They added, "Immediately upon detecting the issue, our security teams began an investigation with the assistance of external cybersecurity experts. We also notified law enforcement."

To combat the issue, some systems had to be taken offline "to help protect them," Ahold officials said.

They added, "This issue and subsequent mitigating actions have affected certain Ahold Delhaize USA brands and services, including a number of pharmacies and certain e-commerce operations."

Online ordering has been a problem for shoppers, one customer service staffer said. Meat and produce orders have been delayed because of the system problem, the staffer added.

A customer in the Greater Hartford area said she noticed some empty shelves on Monday after they were picked clean over the weekend.

Said another shopper, "We're missing a lot of vegetables in the produce department. "If you go in and look on the shelves, you’ll see everything's spread out to make it look a little bit fuller."

One Connecticut shopper had a chuckle over the matter because, on Sunday, his local Aldi store was out of frozen bags of meatballs, but a Stop & Shop had plenty.

Said store officials, "Each of Ahold Delhaize USA's brands' stores are open and serving customers. We will continue to take actions to further protect our systems. The security of our customers, associates and partners is a top priority. We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused customers and partners."

A customer service staffer in Connecticut said Monday that ordering was "slowly" coming back online. A shopper in New Haven County echoed that sentiment. He said some services remained down and some parts of the shelves were empty, especially in the produce area.

"But tons of employees are quickly loading shelves throughout the store," the shopper said. "Looks like they are quickly getting back to normal. I would say 90 percent of the store is fully stocked."