Aria Farm says hackers' product recall message was 'sabotage'

1.00pm

A Waikato food company, Aria Farm, faces potential ruin following industrial sabotage, says director Erik Arndt.

Computer hackers have emailed 3000 of the company's customers, saying a company product -- lamb chips -- are being recalled due to an infectious agent, and the warning has since been posted on internet message boards.

Mr Arndt said the full product recall was emailed to his customers at the weekend as coming from his own company's computers, and had the potential to destroy a business.

The hacker also announced free chips were available at a Takapuna coffee bar, but they tasted awful.

The first Mr Arndt and wife Anna knew about the fake recall notice was on Monday morning through replies to the email message.

"We got in touch with supermarkets straight away and let them know it was all a hoax," he said. Mr Arndt also reported the incident to police, who have said they are investigating.

Aria Farm employs 14 people at its Hamilton factory and has an annual turnover of $3 million.

The company was formed in 1997 after Mr and Mrs Arndt, who became frustrated by low returned from their 526ha dry stock farm at Aria in the King Country.

They now produce beef, lamb and chicken chips; lamb strips with basil and mint; and easy-flow mince.

Last year they launched some of the products in Britain through supermarket chain Sainsburys. Their UK company was reported to have invested $3 million in a processing plant in Blaenavon, near Pontypool in Wales, where it also received a grant of over $1 million from the Welsh Development Agency towards establishment costs and for marketing.

In New Zealand, the company has also received a Government "enterprise award" to help it develop export markets in Australia and South America.

Mr Arndt said computer hacking was not something a small family business in Hamilton would expect.

"We're busy going for export licences. We were busy focusing on food safety . . . We weren't focused at all on anything like a computer hacker.

"Here's someone using their creative energy to do nasty things like this."

Mr Arndt said the company spent $7000 upgrading its computer firewall security four months ago. "I'm just trying to get to the bottom of this to see how it happened."

He said only two people -- he and his wife -- knew the password to the database.

- NZPA