floof.org
What I still don’t understand is why you would design a fridge to be able to store food at over 50C…
In recent years I’ve seen my local Coop have problems with its fridges regularly malfunctioning. Was this a thing before we decided to operate them remotely?
But yes, this is a warning to citizens their analogue governments have no idea how to keep them safe in this downward spiralling #AI infiltrated world.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/17/who-hacked-frances-supermarket-fridges
Whether it was youngsters proving their skills or state sabotage, Europe’s most hacked country was left with a mountain of waste after food began cooking in freezersKim Willsher (The Guardian)
The answer is quite simple, actually:
Defrosting. You want to get rid of the ice fast.
Too bad they seem to have a remote defrost option, however..
I suspected this was the justification, but has someone balanced the need for defrosting at that speed against how often it will be actually needed and the inherent risk it poses?
You've never wondered why you never see the bank of freezers in a supermarket with frost in them?
They're remotely controlled so that they can be kept frost free by defrosting them overnight,
They heat each freezer up to a +°C for a few minutes, then refreeze it back down to -19°C.
But growing up, it wasn’t unusual to see frost in the local supermarket freezers…people still bought frozen food and we survived. This is wasting energy on an absolutely absurd level to just give the impression of a frost free freezer to customers.
It’s just one example of why energy use has exploded in my life time for totally cosmetic reasons.
Also that’s an insane waste of energy…apparently the defrosting/refrosting process of supermarket freezers in the UK accounts for 30% of their energy used.
That’s energy that could apparently heat 800,000 homes daily.
But if this was the intended message of the hackers (which it may well not have been - just wanted to cause chaos and fear) then it’s truly been lost in the reporting of the event.
We are told to assume this is an international terrorist attack directed by Russia/Iran…and maybe it is, but there is also huge domestic intergenerational unrest in France at the moment.
Drawing attention to capitalism’s insane waste of energy to keep freezers appearing frost free at all times (the defrost/refrost process that was hacked apparently uses up 30% of the energy these supermarket freezers use) would also suggest this could be an entirely domestic attack for environmental reasons.
I did wonder whether there was an assumption that you didn’t need to bother selling a commercial freezer in the UK to work above 35C. I generally have a lot of respect for my local East of England Coop - they retain staff for years (some have been there the whole decade I’ve lived around the corner) and there is a guy who has funded his entire politics PhD working there. But I worry about the infrastructure - the staff openly swear about it in front of customers!
I have some commercials myself, and it’s very noticeable that old ones are superior in their working temp range, and also noted as ok for outbuildings.
Newer ones openly say on the label they’re for indoor nonambient use only, and with a rather pathetic op range (I think they assume their freezers will live in a chilled dedicated room)
Selling tat doesn’t stop them raising prices stupidly, of course.
