Japan’s Favourite Snacks Just Got Hit by a Hacker No One Saw Coming

If you have picked up a box of Pocky, ordered from KFC Japan, or grabbed a plate at Kura Sushi in the past few days, you may be feeling the effects of a cyberattack most customers never saw coming. Nichirei, Japan’s leading frozen food supplier and refrigerated warehouse operator, revealed on Tuesday that a cyberattack had disrupted operations across its subsidiaries, including deliveries, and the fallout is already visible on shelves and in restaurants across the country.

Ezaki Glico, the company behind Pocky, said on Wednesday that shipments of some of its ice cream products had been delayed because part of its inventory sits inside Nichirei’s refrigerated warehouses. Local media put the scale at up to 20 per cent of Glico’s ice cream products affected, though the company itself has not shared a financial estimate. To soften the blow, Glico is now using alternative supply arrangements, especially in western Japan, where ice cream demand spikes hardest during the summer heat.

The disruption is not limited to one brand. KFC Japan has warned that some restaurants could run into shortages severe enough to force temporary menu changes or short-term closures. Kura Sushi confirmed delays at some of its western Japan outlets, while local reports say major supermarket chains, pastry makers and even elderly care centre dining halls have felt the squeeze from the same broken cold-chain network.

Nichirei says it will begin gradually restoring services from July 17, but has not confirmed exactly when things will be back to normal for every affected partner. Until then, a single breach at one logistics company is enough to keep some of Japan’s most familiar snack and restaurant names running on backup plans.

It is also part of a pattern. Beer maker Asahi was hit by a ransomware attack in 2025 that disrupted its operations for months and forced manual order processing, an attack Russian-linked hacker group Qilin later claimed, according to Japanese media. Retailer Muji had to suspend its online shopping in Japan too, after its delivery partner Askul was separately hit by a cyberattack — proof that in Japan’s supply chains, one weak link can knock out access to household names almost overnight.

[Source: Wikimedia Commons/by Bakkai]