Asahi Group Has Partially Restarted Beer Production, Shipments in Japan — Update

By Kosaku Narioka

Asahi Group has partially restarted beer production and shipments in Japan, after its operations were disrupted by a ransomware attack last week.

The Japanese maker of beer and other beverages resumed production at six domestic plants on Thursday and shipments began thereafter, according to an Asahi spokeswoman Monday.

Founded in 1889, the food-and-beverage giant owns beer brands, including Asahi Super Dry, Japan's most popular beer, and Italy's Peroni and Pilsner Urquell from the Czech Republic.

Asahi started taking orders manually on Wednesday and shipments are much smaller than before the cyberattack, the spokeswoman said. The company isn't certain when the system will be restored, she said.

Asahi early last week said that order and shipment operations and call-center operations were suspended due to the system failure as a result of a cyberattack, which it elaborated on Friday to be a ransomware attack.

It will take one to two weeks' disruption to affect supermarkets and convenience stores, as they tend to have sizeable inventories, said Euan McLeish, APAC food & beverages senior analyst at Bernstein.

The attack happened in one of the slowest months of the year for the sector, but December is the largest selling month for Super Dry so risks to Asahi are expected to ramp up the longer supply is disrupted, McLeish said.

"In some cases, cyber crime incidents have disrupted systems for up to two or three months, too short to switch to an import supply chain, but long enough to significantly impact earnings," he said. In a worst case scenario with three months of disruption, Bernstein's fourth-quarter global core operating profit estimate for Asahi could be cut by about 80%.

Shares were recently 1.6% higher on Monday, after losing about 7% last week. They underperfomed the broader market with the benchmark Nikkei Stock Average rising 4.6%.

--Fabiana Negrin Ochoa contributed to this report.

Write to Kosaku Narioka at kosaku.narioka@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 06, 2025 02:35 ET (06:35 GMT)