Food Lion Restores Website and App After Cybersecurity Incident

Food Lion restored its website and mobile app after a nine-day outage caused by a network issue, the supermarket chain confirmed Tuesday, October 20, 2026. The disruption followed a cybersecurity incident involving its parent company, Ahold Delhaize, and affected digital shopping services, while Hannaford continued experiencing network problems.

According to Food Lion, the website and app went offline Sunday, October 11, because of a network issue. The company said customers with orders affected by the outage would receive refunds for purchases placed through FoodLion.com or the Food Lion app.

Customers who activated Shop & Earn rewards before the October 11 disruption could continue earning and redeeming rewards as usual, Food Lion said. The company confirmed the incident in a notice posted through its app after digital services were restored.

The outage also affected Hannaford, another supermarket chain owned by Ahold Delhaize. In a report published October 19, the Portland Press Herald said Hannaford's website, mobile app, and Hannaford To Go pickup and delivery services remained affected by a network issue.

Hannaford spokesperson Caitlin Cortelyou linked the disruption to a security issue within the parent company's network. The company operates 188 stores across the Northeast, including 68 locations in Maine, where it employs approximately 9,500 workers.

Ahold Delhaize said it had taken certain systems offline as a precaution after a cybersecurity incident. Its European stores returned to normal online operations, while the company expected U.S. e-commerce services to resume in the days following its October 19 update.

The parent company operates several supermarket brands, including Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, Delhaize in Belgium, and Hannaford, Stop & Shop, Food Lion, and Giant in the United States. Ahold Delhaize said its physical stores remained open during the digital disruption.

The company also said it had found no evidence that sensitive customer, employee, or business partner data had been stolen. It declined to provide further details while the investigation continued, citing concerns that additional information could compromise security measures or interfere with response efforts.

Separately, cyberattacks disrupted refrigeration systems at approximately 700 supermarkets in France on October 12, according to The Associated Press. Hackers reportedly forced refrigeration units into continuous defrost cycles and raised temperatures as high as 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit), causing widespread food losses and some fires.

Cortelyou said Hannaford did not believe its network disruption was connected to the attacks on French retailers. She also addressed separate refrigeration problems at some Hannaford locations, saying those issues involved the equipment itself rather than other factors.

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told Parliament that the refrigeration attacks did not threaten the country's food supplies but affected a critical part of national food security, The Associated Press reported.