A UK supermarket supplier has said it is being held to ransom after falling victim to a cyber attack.

Distributor Peter Green Chilled, which supplies to supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Aldi, told the BBC the cyber incident occurred last Wednesday (14 May).

It said that its clients were “receiving regular updates” including “workarounds”, while it’s understood that one of its customers said thousands of their products could now go to waste.

The logistics firm said no new orders would be processed on Thursday (15 May), however, any that were prepared on Wednesday could still be sent.

“The transport activities of the business have continued unaffected throughout this incident,” said managing director Tom Binks.

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On its website, Peter Chilled says its delivers “daily to all the major retailers in the UK, including Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Waitrose, Co-op, Morrisons, M&S, Aldi and Lidl.”

One customer, Black Farmer founder Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones, said he had “something like ten pallets worth of meat products” which risked being “thrown in the bin”, if not distributed to the retailers in time.

The attack is the latest in a string of cyber incidents hitting the UK grocery sector, following ransomware breaches at M&S and Co-op.

Earlier this month, the government pledged £16m to bolster cybersecurity, warning businesses to treat the threat as “serious organised crime”. Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden described the cyber breaches as a “wake-up call”, and urged the industry to take action.

“Cyber attacks are not a game. Not a clever exercise. They are serious organised crime. The purpose is to damage and extort.”

He added: “What we have seen over the past couple of weeks should serve as a wake-up call for businesses and organisations up and down the UK, as if we needed one, that cybersecurity is not a luxury but an absolute necessity.”