Nichirei to Fully Resume Operations as Early as Next Week

Tokyo, July 17 (Jiji Press)–Japanese frozen food maker Nichirei Corp. said Friday that it is preparing to fully resume operations as early as next week following a cyberattack earlier this week. The company on Friday partially restarted operations at refrigerated warehouses and food factories, by accepting limited orders from client companies. Nichirei said on Monday that it had been hit by unauthorized access that caused systems failures. To protect personal information, the company shut off all access to its systems, resulting in disruptions to loading and unloading at refrigerated warehouses and the shipping of frozen foods, affecting many client companies. School lunch menus across the country were also affected. In Akita, a city in northeastern Japan, 40 elementary and junior high schools changed the main dish of their school meals from hamburger steak to steamed chicken on Thursday and Friday, according to the city’s board of education. At supermarkets, some parts of frozen food sections were empty, with explanations that some products were out of stock because of a system glitch that hit a supplier. In Sendai, a city also in northeastern Japan, four elementary and junior high schools changed menus for school meals from Wednesday through Friday, such as replacing pudding with ice cream and procuring spring rolls from a different food maker, according to the city’s board of education. An official in charge of school meals at the Sendai board of education said that more efforts would have been required if the timing had not been just before the start of the summer vacation, which begins Saturday. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]