The store manager after the attack: "It's a form of terrorism"

The alarm came early in the morning: it is 50 degrees in the freezers.

- I was here at half past six and saw the devastation, says Rickard Nilsson, colonial store manager at Ica Kvantum in Sjöbo.

He cruises between shopping carts filled to the brim with thawed chicken drumsticks, fish packages and ready meals. Everything goes straight into express-ordered containers.

Rickard Nilsson cannot say exactly how big the losses will be, but estimates the value of the destroyed goods at several hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of kroner.

- It's a hell of a lot of food waste, he says.

Several stores around the country were affected by the suspected hacker attack during the night towards Monday.

- We can confirm that we have received information that a small number of stores, which have their connection outside Ica's central network, have suffered an incident during the night, Gustaf Nilsson at Ica's press service told DN.

A number of Coop stores in Central Sweden are also affected - as are grocery stores in Estonia and Belgium. A few weeks ago, French grocery stores were subjected to a similar attack.

In Skåne, in addition to Ica Kvantum in Sjöbo, the stores in Tomelilla and Sankt Olof have also been affected. They are operated by the same merchant.

In Sjöbo, a refrigeration technician works to get the freezers running again. On Monday, customers can go home without frozen goods - and Rickard Nilsson worries about what will happen in the future.

- Someone has gotten into our fridge and freezer monitoring system and manipulated the settings. How do we make sure it doesn't happen again?

Large parts of the staff have had to move in to clear the store. Camilla Andersson, marketing manager, is usually in the office. Now she and her colleagues scoop food out of the freezers so that customers do not accidentally bring spoiled products with them.

- You get a stomach ache, this is anxiety, she says.

The store was closed in the early hours of the morning but was soon able to open as usual.

Customer Lena Elfving Olsson has no frozen goods on her shopping list, but still feels affected.

- How vulnerable we are, it just gets worse and worse. And where does this come from? Sweden or is it from abroad?

When she previously heard about hacker attacks, she thought that one day it would also happen to her.

- Now it came very close. It feels scary, says Lena Elfving Olsson.

A freezer in the warehouse is still working and new deliveries of frozen goods to the store are expected on Monday. Rickard Nilsson says that the customers have so far shown great understanding. Many react with dismay and find it difficult to understand why anyone would want to spoil food.

He himself goes a step further.

- I personally think it is a form of terrorism.