Maple Leaf Foods confirmed on Sunday that it experienced a cybersecurity incident causing a system outage and disruption of operations.
Maple Leaf Foods is Canada's largest prepared meats and poultry food producer, operating 21 manufacturing facilities, employing 14,000 people, and contracting over 700 barns. In 2021, the firm generated $3.3 billion in sales.
Hackers often launch cyberattacks during weekends, hoping to find incident responders understaffed, and maximize their chances for success.
Despite the timing, the Canadian food packaging giant says its IT team took immediate action to respond to the incident.
Currently, the firm's specialists are working with cybersecurity and recovery experts to resolve the situation as soon as possible.
"The company is executing its business continuity plans as it works to restore the impacted systems," reads the announcement.
"However, it expects that full resolution of the outage will take time and result in some operational and service disruptions."
Maple Leaf Foods says it will continue to work with customers and partners to minimize the food supply disruption in the Canadian market.
