Asahi System Outage Spreads to Year-End Gifts

TOKYO, Oct 21 (News On Japan) - A prolonged system failure caused by a cyberattack at Asahi Group Holdings is now rippling into Japan’s year-end gift season, forcing major brewers to scale back their offerings.

Kirin Brewery announced that it will suspend sales of 14 types of gift sets, including the “Hare Kaze Set” launched earlier this month and a “Family Set” that combines its Ichiban Shibori beer with Tropicana juice. The company said that demand for these products has surged beyond expectations due to disruptions caused by Asahi’s system outage. To prioritize stable supply of its regular products, Kirin decided to temporarily halt gift set sales.

Orders already placed will still be fulfilled, but future offerings will be limited to three gift products consisting only of Ichiban Shibori beer.

The impact of Asahi’s system troubles is spreading across the industry. Last week, both Suntory and Sapporo also announced partial suspensions of their year-end gift lineups, highlighting how the fallout from the cyberattack is now affecting the crucial year-end sales period.

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