United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI), a major distributor of natural and organic foods across the U.S. and Canada, is contending with a significant cyberattack that began on June 5, 2025. The intrusion forced the company to shut down portions of its IT infrastructure, severely disrupting its ability to fulfill customer orders and maintain normal distribution operations.
UNFI supplies products to more than 30,000 retailers, including Whole Foods, Amazon, Target, and Walmart, and handles over 250,000 different grocery items.
According to regulatory filings and public statements, UNFI activated its incident response plan immediately after detecting unauthorized activity on its network. The company is working closely with third-party cybersecurity professionals and law enforcement to investigate the breach and gradually bring systems back online.
However, with the disruption still ongoing, grocery store shelves are beginning to reflect the impact, raising concerns about supply chain resilience and consumer pricing.
Why It Matters: The cyberattack on UNFI underscores how dependent modern supply chains have become on secure, uninterrupted digital operations. Disruptions at a distributor of this scale can quickly ripple through the food ecosystem, causing shortages, logistical bottlenecks, and potential price increases. It also highlights the growing cybersecurity challenges facing critical industries like food distribution, where any downtime can translate to real-world hardship for consumers.
- Rapid Response and Containment Measures: UNFI first identified the breach on June 5 and swiftly enacted containment protocols, taking parts of its IT systems offline. The company has since implemented workarounds where possible to maintain partial service while restoring systems carefully to avoid further risk.
- Ongoing Operational Disruptions: The attack continues to hamper UNFI’s ability to process and distribute orders. CEO Sandy Douglas reported that UNFI is helping customers with short-term solutions but is currently shipping products on a limited basis. External-facing systems, including supplier and customer web portals and VPN services, remain offline.
- Visible Supply Chain Impact: There are anecdotal reports of empty or understocked shelves at Whole Foods and other grocery chains supplied by UNFI. One customer trialing a new product reported receiving little communication and undelivered shipments. The broader downstream impact may become more visible in the coming days as store inventories deplete.
- Broader Industry Trend: The UNFI incident follows a troubling trend of cyberattacks targeting the food and agriculture sector. Previous disruptions, such as the ransomware attack on JBS and the Thanksgiving-season cyberattack on Ahold Delhaize USA stores, have demonstrated how vulnerable this sector remains to digital threats.
- Financial and Legal Implications: UNFI reported $8.1 billion in net sales for the quarter ended May 3, 2025, but it has acknowledged that the financial impact of this attack is still being assessed. The company warned that it expects temporary disruptions to persist, and legal, regulatory, and reputational risks remain under review as the investigation proceeds.
Go Deeper -> Major food wholesaler says cyberattack impacting distribution systems – The Record
Ongoing cyberattack at US grocery distributor giant UNFI affecting customer orders – Tech Crunch
