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In May 2025, Peter Green Chilled, a logistics firm supplying major UK supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, and Aldi, was hit by a ransomware attack that left its order processing systems inoperable. While deliveries were still able to leave the depot, the disruption to scheduling and coordination meant delays and the risk of spoilage.
The incident is part of a growing and highly concerning trend. In the last few months alone, other high-profile UK businesses in the food and retail sectors, including Marks & Spencer and the Co-op Group, have also faced similar incidents.
What once seemed like a rare occurrence is now happening with troubling frequency, and it’s raising important questions. Why are UK food and retail businesses becoming such attractive targets? And more importantly, what can be done to protect businesses from these threats?
Why Food and Retail Businesses Are at Greater Risk
Food supply chains are incredibly complex, and unfortunately, inherently vulnerable. They rely on just-in-time delivery, tightly coordinated logistics, and extensive networks of third-party suppliers to get perishable goods from producers to consumers. This reliance on digital systems, paired with narrow margins and time-sensitive operations, creates the perfect conditions for disruption. Cybercriminals understand this dynamic and will seek to exploit it.
For attackers, food logistics businesses present a strategic opportunity. By disabling systems at a critical point in the supply chain, they can cause major financial and reputational harm. That increases pressure on victims to pay up quickly to resume operations. In the case of Peter Green Chilled, the ransomware didn't shut down transport, but the disruption to internal systems still threatened large quantities of fresh food. This isn’t just about targeting large companies, attackers know that suppliers and smaller partners are often less well-defended, making them easier entry points into much larger ecosystems, as they often don’t have the resources available to them to invest in stringent security measures.
The broader trend in the UK retail sector suggests that this isn't an isolated issue. These attacks are coordinated, and they are incredibly effective. Criminal groups are increasingly treating ransomware campaigns like commercial operations, mapping out supply chains and prioritising targets that will deliver maximum disruption with minimal effort.
The Wider Impact on the UK Digital Economy
What happens to one supplier rarely stays contained. The digital infrastructure behind UK retail and food services is interconnected and fast-moving. When a logistics provider or key partner is hit by a cyberattack, delays ripple outward and at staggering speeds. Supermarkets experience stock shortages. Customers encounter service disruptions. And public confidence in the digital systems and organisations underpinning everyday services takes a hit. As an example, M&S is still struggling to recover from their recent ransomware attack, with empty shelves in stores being a common sight up and down the UK.
Financial losses are also not confined to the initial ransom or cost of downtime. Reputational damage, regulatory scrutiny, and reduced trust from customers and partners all take their toll. In highly regulated sectors like food, where traceability, safety, and hygiene are paramount, even a temporary lapse in operations caused by a cyber incident can lead to long-term scrutiny from both consumers and regulators.
We’re seeing a shift. Attacks on digital infrastructure are no longer just about data—they're about the physical world too. A ransomware attack can now result in empty supermarket shelves or wasted food. And if the UK doesn’t take this shift seriously, the consequences for national supply chain resilience could be severe.
What Needs to Change: Beyond Checklists and Compliance Boxes
The response to this growing threat can’t be reactive. Businesses need to move away from a mindset of “checking the cyber security/compliance box” once a year and instead adopt continuous, proactive security practices. That starts with implementing frameworks like Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001, and following their requirements for secure practices. But this can often be challenging for some organisations.
Part of this challenge is the complexity. For smaller businesses in particular, implementing and managing compliance manually is incredibly time-consuming and resource-intensive. Even for larger businesses, keeping up with changing systems, shifting compliance requirements, and vendor oversight can quickly become overwhelming.
That’s where automation through a tool such as OneClickComply can play a massive role.
The Role of Automation in Building Resilience
OneClickComply helps businesses close the gap between policy and action. Instead of simply telling you what’s out of place, the platform actively helps correct it. It continuously monitors your systems for non-compliance with security frameworks like ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, and SOC 2, and allows you to automatically aligns your systems to meet those standards using our ‘Fix this for me’ approach.
Whether it’s enforcing multi-factor authentication, ensuring audit logs are enabled, or maintaining endpoint protection, OneClickComply handles these tasks automatically across platforms such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, AWS or Azure, saving teams hours of manual work and ensuring controls stay in place over time. When something drifts out of compliance, the platform detects it immediately, so issues don’t go unnoticed for weeks or months.
For businesses that rely on a network of suppliers, OneClickComply also supports vendor risk management by centralising supplier information and tracking compliance documentation, helping organisations identify third-party vulnerabilities before they become entry points for attackers, alongside policy generation for a variety of popular security policies.
By embedding compliance into day-to-day operations, businesses are no longer scrambling when something goes wrong. They’re already aligned with best practices to minimise the chance of a successful attack.
Final Thoughts
The UK’s food and retail sectors are being brutally tested, and they’re falling short. Ransomware groups are deliberately focusing on these industries because of their urgency, complexity, and often-overlooked vulnerabilities. The stakes are no longer just about protecting data. They’re about protecting food, livelihoods, and public confidence.
Responding effectively means taking compliance seriously, but not in a passive, box-ticking way. It means embedding security practices into daily operations and using tools that make that process easier, faster, and more resilient.
Because when it comes to cybersecurity, the question is never if your business will be targeted, but when. The better prepared you are, the less impact that attack will have, and the faster you can recover.
