Good news for those who have been missing their favourite grocery items from Prairie Sky Co-op Food Store since the Federated Co-op Ltd.'s cyber security incident in late June. As a result of the incident, for the past three weeks, the store's staff has been unable to order enough groceries to keep the shelves properly stocked.
"Our normal way of ordering products has been restored", said Kevin Arthur, General Manager with Prairie Sky Coop. "However, it will take a week or so to really get back to normal, as both the warehouse we order from and our own store are depleted somewhat, so it'll take a little bit to get that back to meet our customers' expectations."
"We were just getting a prorated amount of product," he explained. "We weren't really able to order all the things we needed, so we just got a few items beyond our control throughout the situation."
While other departments were virtually unaffected, the grocery items were in short supply. However, Arthur said their staff kept busy ensuring they got what they could.
"There are certain categories where we order direct from suppliers, and that was able to continue on fairly normally. It was just the stuff ordered directly from Federated Co-op's warehouse," he noted. "It took a lot of our staff time just to do the best they could with ordering special products from outside suppliers and to make the store as full as it can be."
Arthur said they did not have to cut hours for their staff, who "did a tremendous job of just explaining the situation to customers and trying to help them find suitable products to fill their orders."
"I think our customers were very understanding and they've obviously heard these situations happen at other companies and knew was beyond our local control. So our customers were great throughout."
He pointed out that in other similar cybersecurity situations, businesses have been forced to close their doors for up to a week.
"We were fortunate in some ways," he said. "We were able to operate all through and do the best we could at sourcing supplies elsewhere. The tills did work. As bad as it was, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that was still actually working in the background, that it wasn't as bad as it could have been."
"Definitely a big thank you to our staff and our customers. This has not been an easy time for either."
Within about a week, the shelves should be fully stocked.
"It won't happen overnight, but every time we get a truck, we're getting better."