Nichirei will begin resuming shipping and warehouse operations on July 17 [2] after a cyberattack disrupted the company's systems.

The disruption affects critical infrastructure for the Japanese food giant, including the movement of frozen foods and the management of cold-storage warehouses. Because these systems are used across the entire group, the outage created a bottleneck in the domestic supply chain for frozen goods.

The company confirmed that the system failure was the result of a cyberattack involving unauthorized access [1]. This breach occurred on July 13 [1], leading to an immediate shutdown of several core business processes to contain the threat.

According to the company, the recovery process is now underway. Operations involving the entry and exit of goods from refrigerated warehouses and the shipping of frozen food products will be restored sequentially starting Friday [2].

Nichirei has not released specific details regarding the nature of the unauthorized access or whether any data was exfiltrated. The company said the focus remains on the phased restoration of services to minimize further impact on its logistics network.

This incident highlights the vulnerability of specialized logistics systems, particularly those managing temperature-controlled environments, to external digital threats. The sequential restart is intended to ensure system stability before full capacity is restored across all Japanese shipping hubs [2].

“The system failure was the result of a cyberattack involving unauthorized access.”

The attack on Nichirei underscores the systemic risk that cyber threats pose to the 'cold chain'—the temperature-controlled supply chain essential for food safety. A failure in these systems does not just stop data flow but physically halts the movement of perishable goods, demonstrating how digital vulnerabilities can lead to immediate physical disruptions in food security and logistics.