The Freezer Hack Was Never About Fridges
On the night of 11 October, someone switched hundreds of French supermarkets’ freezers into defrost mode and pushed the temperature to 50°C. By Monday morning, staff were opening freezer doors to blasts of hot air, pools of water and spoiled stock. Some stores caught fire. Around 700 food retailers were affected and single stores reported losses of several hundred thousand euros. The timing was no accident either.