Cyberattack attempt cost Albert Heijn up to €150 million, experts say

The “cybersecurity incident” at the parent company Ahold Delhaize has caused Albert Heijn to lose an estimated 120 to 150 million euros in revenue, according to calculations by two retail experts made at the request of RTL Z. Grocery deliveries are still not possible until Friday, while many Albert Heijn stores last week were seeing empty shelves.

The store itself has not commented on the size of the financial impact. But Laurens Sloot, professor of Entrepreneurship & Retail at the University of Groningen, estimates that Albert Heijn is missing out on roughly 150 million in total revenue due to the issues.

According to the expert, the supermarket chain usually generates about 360 million euro per week. He estimates that last week, 20 to 25 percent of that, which translates to roughly 70-90 million, was lost. Online sales add on to that. The store's normal weekly revenue is about 40 million euros, which dropped to zero last week.

All together, that results in approximately 150 million in revenue losses. “Even for Albert Heijn, that’s a substantial amount,” he said. He clarified that the number represents a missed revenue, not a pure loss.

Supermarket expert Erik Hemmes arrived at a lower estimate than Sloot, he told RTL. Using a normal total revenue of about 380 million euros, Hemmes arrived at around 120 million in revenue.

He estimated that store revenue was running about 10 percent lower for a week and a half. Online sales also come on top of that. Hemmes estimates that the store chain is missing out on about 5 million euros in pre-tax profit, with rougly 1 million in extra costs added on top of that.

On Monday, it emerged that Ahold Delhaize has filed a police report regarding the “cybersecurity incident.” It had also reported the hack to the National Cyber Security Centre (NSCSC) within 24 hours of discovering it.

The Gall & Gall and Etos websites are accessible again. Over in the U.S., related webshops are expected to resume full operations in the coming days, while in Belgium they are once again in full swing.