Hundreds of French supermarket stores seem to have lost cold-chain control overnight from Sunday into Monday, October 12, after a cyberattack that forced refrigeration units to heat and spoiled fresh and frozen stock. The BBC, France 24, CBS News, Channel News Asia and Le Temps all describe the same broad event, drawing heavily on AFP interviews with the retailers and on French broadcaster BFMTV. Coopérative U chief executive Dominique Schelcher called the episode “extremely serious and unprecedented” in comments the BBC carries, and France 24 and CBS quote him calling it “unprecedented.” Schelcher wrote on X that targeting equipment essential to fresh-product preservation and to the French food supply “is unacceptable,” France 24 reports.
Retailers disagree on exact store counts, so this desk shows the range rather than picking one total. The BBC says more than 100 Coopérative U stores faced the hit, and that 180 Intermarché and Netto stores took damage while a spokesman said another 100 shops “were urgently disconnected from the internet to prevent the same thing happening to them.” France 24, citing the retailers, puts Intermarché at 150–200 shops and Coopérative U at almost 100. CBS News and Channel News Asia, citing the retailers via AFP, report at least 300 Intermarché or Netto shops and over 100 Cooperative U outlets. Carrefour said fridges in 80 of its roughly 6,000 stores faced hacking, the BBC and France 24 report. Monoprix told the BBC that 5% of its 400-plus stores faced the hit; France 24 and Le Temps put Monoprix at around thirty stores. The BBC estimates about 400 stores affected out of roughly 15,000 French food-retail outlets overall.
Hackers seem to have seized the remote temperature software that retailers use to manage cold units. One supermarket chain told reporters the fridges heated to 50C (about 120F) for hours overnight, the BBC reports, and France 24 carries the same 50°C / 122°F figure. BFMTV said hackers managed to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores, France 24 reports. BFMTV published an ice-cream-aisle display reading 26.5C, the BBC reports. Managers arriving Monday morning met waves of hot air from freezers, the BBC reports, and in some places small fires broke out. Paris prosecutors confirmed an investigation into “the large-scale cyberattack affecting the refrigerators of several major food retail chains across France,” and said the probe would identify victims and link reported foodstuff losses and “the outbreak of fires,” CBS News, France 24 and the BBC quote via AFP.
E. Leclerc confirmed to AFP “that a cyberattack affected one of its refrigeration equipment suppliers,” with “repercussions on the operation of refrigeration systems in several stores,” CBS News and Channel News Asia report. A source close to the matter pointed to refrigeration control systems from Danish manufacturer Danfoss, those outlets say. Danfoss told AFP that most affected units belonged to older “legacy” products that “no longer receive software or security updates,” CBS and Channel News Asia report, and named AK-SM800 and AK-SC355 fridge-regulator systems as notably affected, with one AK-SM800 version using “outdated firmware.” Danfoss said it had “long advised” customers to keep supported systems up to date and to migrate legacy systems, the BBC and CBS report. Danfoss gave no figure for how many systems faced the hit.
Intermarché and Netto, owned by the Mousquetaires Group, told the BBC that some fresh and frozen display units remained out of service on Monday afternoon and that stores had “taken all necessary precautions to remove the products from these units” while staff worked to restock “as soon as possible.” Intermarché told AFP the affected branches would have to throw away all fresh and frozen products, France 24 and CBS report. Intermarché condemned food waste and financial losses without giving a nationwide total, and warned that insurance policies may not “cover this type” of in-store incident, France 24 reports. Two Alsace-region supermarkets reported losses of €270,000 (£228,000) between them, BFMTV said via the BBC, which notes the nationwide total could run into the millions.
EU food and agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen condemned the hack on X. The BBC quotes him saying “Food security requires more attention at all levels. Because the weaponisation of food has become a reality.” CBS News renders the second clause as such “exploitation of food” now standing as a “reality.” Schelcher said staff had fully mobilized with refrigeration specialists “to restore the situation as quickly as possible,” the BBC reports. France 24 notes that President Emmanuel Macron last month ordered measures to protect French critical infrastructure from Russian “hybrid attacks,” but outlets have not named a perpetrator for this refrigeration incident. This desk could not independently confirm the attacker’s identity, the exact nationwide store total, or a verified nationwide euro loss figure.
Correction · Oct 12, 2026, 5:05 PM PT: An earlier version credited BFMTV’s forced-defrosting account (“managed to remotely trigger the forced defrosting…”) to France 24 and the BBC. The BBC copy carries the 26.5C aisle-display detail but lacks that forced-defrosting quote, so this desk now credits France 24 only for the defrosting claim and the BBC only for the 26.5C display.
