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A cyberattack in France forced several grocery stores to throw away large quantities of temperature-sensitive products after hackers heated food refrigerators in hundreds of stores from at least five brand chains.
The hack, according to Reuters and European officials, affected chains including Carrefour, Monoprix, Les Mousquetaires, E. Leclerc and Coopérative U.
The CEO of Cooperative U, a retail group structured as a cooperative of independent businesses, confirmed the cyberattack in a Monday post on X.
“I confirm that a cyberattack has affected the cold production facilities of several stores in our Cooperative U network since yesterday evening,” he wrote in the post.
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View of the closed frozen food section of a supermarket near Nantes after a cyberattack targeting the refrigeration systems of French supermarket chains, causing food losses and fires in several stores, France, October 12, 2026. (Reuters/Stéphane Mahé)
“Our teams are fully mobilized, in coordination with refrigeration specialists, to restore the situation as quickly as possible. An investigation will be necessary to shed light on this attack. Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and the food supply of the French is extremely serious and unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” he concluded.
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The Paris prosecutor’s office also confirmed the cyberattack, calling it a “large-scale” attack that affected “connected refrigerators in several large food stores across France.”
Carrefour said around 80 of its stores were affected while Monoprix, which operates 490 stores in France according to Reuters, said 5% of its stores were affected.
View of the closed frozen food section of a supermarket near Nantes after a cyberattack targeting the refrigeration systems of French supermarket chains, causing food losses and fires in several stores, France, October 12, 2026. (Reuters/Stéphane Mahé)
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The Musketeers said refrigerators in about 150 of their stores were heated to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) for six hours. A company spokesperson also said that all affected food had been thrown out, according to Reuters.
Although the financial toll of the incident for the supermarket has not yet been officially assessed, experts have estimated losses at more than 10 million euros, the equivalent of around $11.2 million.
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The attack likely resulted in the loss of “tens of millions of euros nationwide in a single day,” Intermarché CEO Thierry Cotillard said in a television interview in France, according to Reuters.
A source with knowledge of refrigerator systems reportedly told AFP that the hackers had targeted the control systems of refrigerators from Danish manufacturer Danfoss.
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Danfoss, for its part, told AFP that most of the equipment concerned was “old” products which “no longer receive software or security updates”. The company also added that some of the affected systems were using “outdated firmware” that it had long advised its buyers to update.
Danfoss did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for additional comment.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu arrives to deliver a statement at the Matignon Hotel in Paris, Monday October 6, 2025. (Ludovic Marin, Swimming pool)
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French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has instructed the National Computer Security Agency (ANSSI) to open an investigation. ANSSI has already identified “a vulnerability in software provided by a Danish company and has contacted the publisher”, a source close to Lecornu reportedly told AFP.
Christophe Hansen, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Food, denounced the attack as an affront to European food security.
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“I strongly condemn the cyberattack targeting food products at Intermarché, Coopérative U, Leclerc. Food safety requires more attention at all levels. Because the militarization of food has become a reality,” he said in a post on X on Monday.
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Fox News Digital has contacted the Paris prosecutor’s office, Carrefour, Monoprix, E. Leclerc, Les Mousquetaires and Coopérative U for confirmation and additional comments.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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