Santa Cruz-area grocery stores disrupted by cyberattack to major supplier, but say impact is limited – for now

The largest natural food distributor in the U.S. is reeling from a cyberattack last week that has disrupted orders of grocery items to natural food stores throughout the country. Santa Cruz County retailers have seen multiple deliveries canceled, and while some are finding workaround solutions to help keep shelves full, customers could see favorite items missing from local stores if the issue isn’t resolved soon. 

Last Thursday, United Natural Foods, one of the largest natural food wholesalers in the United States, reported unauthorized activity in its systems, forcing the company to take some of them offline. The cyberattack has prevented UNFI from fulfilling and distributing new orders for the past five days. 

Law enforcement and forensic experts are investigating, UNFI said in a statement on Monday. As of Wednesday, many systems remained offline, leaving natural food stores that specialize in organic and whole foods throughout Santa Cruz County without regular orders of a wide range of grocery products, from hummus and eggs to canned goods and bulk items. 

At the Food Bin in Santa Cruz, owner Doug Wallace has so far missed one of his two weekly deliveries from UNFI due to the attack. About 80% of the categories in his store have been affected, encompassing a wide range of items like pasta, canned goods, plant-based milk, and chips, refrigerated items like kombucha, hummus and ethically produced Vital Farms eggs, and non-food goods like dishwashing soap and laundry detergent. It hasn’t affected Food Bin’s produce because it orders fruits, vegetables and herbs from another supplier. 

“It’s not catastrophic yet,” said Wallace, but he predicted that shelves at larger local retailers might look a little bare if the issue isn’t resolved soon. As of Tuesday, UNFI told Wallace that it had developed a workaround that would allow the company to fulfill his most recent order. “They can take the last order from a week ago, duplicate it and send it to you, but you can’t make any changes,” he said. 

He said he’s fortunate that there are other suppliers in the Bay Area that he can order some items from. “They don’t have everything but we can get pieces from each supplier to make up for 40-50% of what we would have gotten from UNFI,” said Wallace. 

In Watsonville, Staff of Life Market grocery manager Matthew Martinez said the store it hasn’t received three out of the five shipments it normally receives weekly from UNFI; the most recent delivery was on Friday.

The effect will be felt “across the board,” from vitamins, deli meats and cheese, frozen foods and the store’s bulk section. “Some things are low. We did get a supplemental order yesterday and we’ll get another later today, but it’s not 100% of what we normally have,” said Martinez on Tuesday. 

Rather than reach out to other distributors, Staff of Life plans to wait out the disruption in the hopes that it will be resolved soon. 

UNFI is the largest distributor to Whole Foods Market. A manager at Whole Foods Market in Capitola said that they’re not allowed to answer media questions at the store level, but other Whole Foods are experiencing widespread shortages in nearly every department. “We are working to restock our shelves as quickly as possible and apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused our customers,” said a spokesperson from Whole Foods Market in an email. 

Aptos Foods and Seascape Foods in Aptos and New Leaf Community Markets did not respond to requests for updates. 

On Wednesday, UNFI said that it is preparing to increase capacity in the coming days. “Our customers, suppliers and associates are our highest priority,” said an updated statement. “We continue to work closely with them to minimize disruptions as much as possible.” 

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