‘All this food is now useless’: Piles of rubbish after shop freezers hit by cyber-attack

The BBC's Nick Beake stands in front of a pile of discarded frozen food - the right hand side of the composite shows a supermarket in Belgium with empty shelves
November 2, 2026

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‘All this food is now useless’: Piles of rubbish after shop freezers hit by cyber-attack

In dozens of supermarkets across several European countries, a huge amount of food has been dumped after refrigerators and freezers were targeted in a cyber-attack.

Belgium and Luxemburg saw some of the worst damage, with 40 Delhaize supermarkets affected, and incidents also took place in stores across Sweden, Ireland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Finland.

In a branch of supermarket Delhaize in Hoeilaart, just outside the Belgian capital Brussels, the BBC’s Europe correspondent Nick Beake found frozen pizzas and ice cream among a mountain of food having to be scrapped. This branch estimated the cost of the damage running to more than €100,000 (£83,500).

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