The Stop & Shop website down problem started on Monday afternoon, October 12, 2026, when the chain's website and app went offline. The cause is a network security incident at Ahold Delhaize, the Dutch parent of US grocers Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Food Lion and Giant Food. Stores, pharmacies and fuel stations stayed open, but online shopping across the company's US banners still had no restoration timeline on Wednesday.
The company has been breached before. Ahold Delhaize USA was hit by an attack in November 2024, which is one reason this outage draws so much attention. Here is what is confirmed, what the company has said about customer data, and what shoppers can do while the sites stay down.
Stop & Shop website down: which banners are affected
Ahold Delhaize confirmed it was dealing with "a security issue within its network" and took some systems offline as a precaution, according to Hudson Valley Country and Union Leader. Its statement said teams were taking steps to assess and mitigate the problem, and that stores remained open.
The websites and apps for Stop & Shop, Hannaford and Giant Food went offline Monday afternoon and stayed down through Tuesday, according to the Boston Globe. Fox Business reported that Food Lion's websites were also affected. Stop & Shop and Hannaford were still unavailable on Wednesday afternoon, according to Union Leader.
| Banner | Reported impact | Status as of Wednesday, Oct. 14 |
|---|---|---|
| Stop & Shop | Website and app offline from Monday afternoon | Still unavailable |
| Hannaford | Website and app offline from Monday afternoon | Still unavailable |
| Giant Food | Website and app offline from Monday afternoon | Down through Tuesday; no Wednesday update in the reporting |
| Food Lion | Websites affected | No restoration status reported |
The shoppers affected are those who use online ordering or pickup in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, along with Food Lion customers in the Southeast. The disruption also reached Ahold's European brands, including Albert Heijn, Delhaize and bol.com, according to Supermarket News. That suggests the problem reaches beyond one US system, though the reporting does not say how far.
Which stores and pharmacies are still open
Stores remained open during normal hours. NBC Boston and Progressive Grocer reported that pharmacies and fuel stations stayed open, and that point-of-sale and refrigeration systems were unaffected. Customers can still shop in person, and some were directed to Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats for delivery, according to NBC Boston and Union Leader.
Stop & Shop told WFSB that as of 7 a.m. Wednesday it did not believe customer payment information or pharmacy systems were compromised. That is a point-in-time assessment, not a finding of the investigation.
Unfulfilled online orders placed during the outage are being refunded, according to WPRI and NBC Boston.
What Ahold Delhaize says about customer data
The company's first statement, on October 12, put its priorities first. "Protecting our infrastructure in the best interest of our customers, associates and partners is a top priority," the company said, as Inc. reported.
Its Wednesday update was more specific about data. The company said, "we have no evidence at this moment that customer, associate and partner data was taken," while the investigation continues, according to Union Leader. That is a statement about current evidence, not a conclusion, and the company has not ruled out associate data exposure.
The company also described its disclosure as inside information under the EU Market Abuse Regulation, according to TechJournal. That label matters because the regulation requires prompt disclosure of inside information that could affect a share price, so the company treated the incident as material to investors.
Security researcher Kevin Beaumont, quoted by BankInfoSecurity, focused on what the statement left out: "again didn't say ransomware."
Who is behind the Ahold Delhaize outage
No group had claimed this incident when TechRadar and CyberPress published their reports. Progressive Grocer reported that INC Ransom took credit, but the passage ties that claim to the 2024 attack, not to this outage. Until a group posts a claim or the company names a cause, ransomware remains unconfirmed.
Security experts have said that shutting down systems often points to ransomware or data-theft efforts, according to TechRadar and CyberPress. That is a pattern, not proof, and the reporting does not yet say how the intruder got in or which systems were isolated.
The same weekend, a cyberattack reportedly warmed refrigerators and freezers at hundreds of French supermarkets, according to TIME. It is unclear whether the two incidents are related, and the reporting does not tie them together.
Food and beverage retail is also a growing target. The Food and Ag-ISAC tracked 227 ransomware incidents in the food and agriculture sector from January through July, up 62% year over year, TIME reported.
How it compares with the 2024 Ahold Delhaize breach
Ahold Delhaize USA's 2024 attack exposed personal information of 2.2 million people, and the company offered two years of credit monitoring, according to Progressive Grocer. Ahold said 2,242,521 people were affected, as CyberPress reported.
INC Ransom claimed that attack and later posted allegedly stolen data in April 2025, when the company confirmed data had been stolen, according to BankInfoSecurity and SecurityWeek. Reporting put the posted material at about 6 TB.
That history explains why the "no evidence" wording will get close attention. The last breach reached a confirmed data theft only in April 2025, when the group posted what it said it had taken, so today's statement will be tested the same way.
Disclosure lag is a recurring problem for defenders. In a separate case, an Ivanti Connect Secure zero-day was exploited for 12 days before a patch arrived, as USA 24 reported.
What shoppers should do if they ordered online
A few steps can lower the risk while the sites are down:
- Watch for unexpected emails, texts or calls that mention the outage, refunds or loyalty accounts, and verify them through official channels before responding.
- Check bank statements and credit reports for suspicious activity, a precaution one local expert recommended, per WWLP via Yahoo.
- If you placed an online order during the outage, confirm your refund in the app or on the website once it returns, as WPRI reported refunds are being issued.
- Open the official app or type the store's web address yourself rather than clicking links in unexpected messages.
Associates and partners are in the same position. The company has not ruled out their data being exposed, so they should treat unexpected messages with the same caution.
What to watch next as systems come back
The first signal is the restoration timeline, which the company has not provided, according to Union Leader and Inc.. The second is whether Ahold Delhaize changes its "no evidence" wording. Any shift from that language would be the clearest sign of what the investigation has found.
Three other questions remain open: whether a ransomware group claims the incident, whether the company explains how the intrusion happened, and whether the US outage is linked to the French supermarket attacks. The reporting does not answer any of them yet.
The next milestone is the first day the Stop & Shop and Hannaford sites come back online. If they return without a data-theft disclosure, Ahold Delhaize will have a clean outcome to point to. If a leak appears, the company's current wording will look much like the 2024 breach, and those questions will return quickly.
