Dutch-Belgian grocery giant Ahold Delhaize estimates that last month’s cyberattack, which disrupted operations in the US and the Benelux, will wipe €200 million to €250 million ($224 million to $280 million) off its fourth-quarter net sales.
The company, whose brands include Albert Heijn, Delhaize, Food Lion and Hannaford, published the estimate this week with its third-quarter results. The attack occurred after the quarter had closed.
The cybersecurity incident is also expected to cost Ahold Delhaize €75 million to €100 million ($84 million to $112 million) in fourth-quarter underlying and IFRS operating income. On top of that, the company faces incident response and remediation expenses, but believes these will have little effect on its IFRS operating income for 2026.
As a result, the retailer has revised its 2026 guidance downward. It now projects diluted underlying earnings per share, at constant exchange rates, to grow in the low single digits, rather than in the mid to high single digits it had previously forecast.
Free cash flow is now expected to reach around €2.1 billion ($2.36 billion), down from at least €2.3 billion ($2.58 billion). Ahold Delhaize attributes the reduction to the cyberattack and to newly introduced Serbian rules governing payments to suppliers.
The company first reported the incident in mid-October, announcing that it had disconnected some systems after detecting a security issue on its network. On October 19, it confirmed it had been hit by a cyberattack and said it had no evidence at the time that customer, associate or partner data had been stolen.
“As part of our protocols to assess and mitigate cybersecurity incidents, we took some systems offline to help protect our IT environment. To differing degrees, this mainly affected our online capabilities in the Benelux and the U.S., as well as our Benelux supply-chain operations,” Frans Muller, Ahold Delhaize’s president and CEO, said in a statement accompanying the latest financial report.
“While most of the disruption was contained within two weeks, work continues to fully restore our normal operations,” he said.
Ahold Delhaize has yet to disclose what type of attack it experienced.
“While the cybersecurity incident has, understandably, demanded significant attention, it is important that we keep it in perspective. Our response demonstrates the resilience of our business; the incident does not define our business,” Muller said.
This is not the first time the company’s systems have been targeted. In November 2024, a ransomware attack disrupted several of its US brands, including Hannaford supermarkets and Giant Food pharmacies. The INC Ransom group claimed responsibility, and Ahold Delhaize later disclosed that the personal information of more than 2.2 million people had been compromised.
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