Health and body care clerk Nathaniel Ross restocks products at the Upper Valley Food Co-Op in White River Junction, Vt., on Friday, June 13, 2025. The co-op has been able to continue ordering products that they purchase directly from companies, but several major brands for products like soap and toothpaste are sourced through distributor United Natural Foods Inc., which was largely offline throughout the week following a cyber attack. (Valley News - Alex Driehaus)

Health and body care clerk Nathaniel Ross restocks products at the Upper Valley Food Co-Op in White River Junction, Vt., on Friday, June 13, 2025. The co-op has been able to continue ordering products that they purchase directly from companies, but several major brands for products like soap and toothpaste are sourced through distributor United Natural Foods Inc., which was largely offline throughout the week following a cyber attack. (Valley News – Alex Driehaus) valley news — Alex Driehaus

Cheese manager Lynne Wolf prepares samples of a sheep cheese at the Upper Valley Food Co-Op in White River Junction, Vt., on Friday, June 13, 2025. Many of the co-op's cheeses are locally sourced, but the store relies on United Natural Foods Inc. to supply products from larger brands.

Cheese manager Lynne Wolf prepares samples of a sheep cheese at the Upper Valley Food Co-Op in White River Junction, Vt., on Friday, June 13, 2025. Many of the co-op’s cheeses are locally sourced, but the store relies on United Natural Foods Inc. to supply products from larger brands. “It looked pretty bleak in the beginning,” store manager Darrion Whalen said of the supply chain interruption, but he noted that the distributor seems to be coming back online relatively quickly. (Valley News – Alex Driehaus) valley news — Alex Driehaus



LEBANON — Shelves at food co-ops in the Upper Valley were a little less stocked this week after a cyberattack on a distributor of organic foods reduced deliveries of certain goods.

On June 5, the Rhode Island-based company United Natural Foods Inc., or UNFI, a major distributor for grocery stores across North America, took some of its systems offline after discovering “unauthorized activity.”

“We’ve experienced the pinch but we’re not in a place where we fully rely on UNFI,” Marybeth Fenton, manager at of the Co-op Food Store in Lebanon, said in an interview at the store on Friday.

Where products of specific brands such as Field Day and Essential Everyday — which can only be ordered through UNFI — usually sit on shelves of the Lebanon store there were “some holes, which is not normally the case,” Fenton said.

“It might be you prefer this type of yogurt and it’s not here right now,” said Dawn Archambeault, the director of marketing & consumer relations for the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society which operates three Co-op Food Store locations in Lebanon, Hanover and White River Junction. “But it doesn’t seem like it’s been a pervasive disruption for people.”

Similarly, the South Royalton Market is out of stock of “some random items” such as certain wraps and kimchi, but overall, has “managed to hold together pretty good,” Tim Perrin, the store’s general manager, said in a phone interview Friday.

“Thankfully, UNFI is not our number one main source,” Perrin said. “We have many other distributors who were able to keep things rolling here.”

Perrin doesn’t blame UNFI for the delays. “The cyberattack sounded pretty heavy,” he said.

The company has released little information about the attack. “The investigation is ongoing with the support of leading forensics experts,” according to a statement posted Wednesday to the company’s website.

On Wednesday, UNFI began “gradually bringing our ordering and receiving capabilities back online, with the goal of further increasing our capacity over the coming days,” the company statement said.

The Upper Valley Food Co-op in White River Junction usually gets three deliveries a week from UNFI, but only received one “very small” delivery on Friday this week, Darrion Whalen, the store manager, said Friday.

The store managed with “days worth of back stock,” along with the 60% of products that come from regional and local suppliers. Whalen has not heard any complaints from customers thus far, he said.

“We’ve done a good job maintaining the integrity of the shelves,” Whalen said.

Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at [email protected] or 603-727-3242.