As of August 10, the Ontario Cannabis Store says its distribution centre is in the process of beginning a limited number of deliveries following a disruption with a third-party distribution partner.
The provincial cannabis regulator is hoping to move towards a fully operational status following the disruption of services due to a cyber attack on the parent company of their third-party distribution partner last Friday.
In an announcement made today, OCS President and CEO David Lobo says that a “small number of deliveries from the distribution centre will be made later today, beginning with the delivery of the orders that were impacted at the time of shut down“.
“The distribution centre will operate around the clock as it transitions back to standard service levels. The teams will work through the current backlog, processing orders in sequence of when they were placed on the OCS ordering platform.”
OCS will first be working to ensure deliveries are made to those retailers whose orders were being processed at the time of shutdown because Domain Logistics was finally able to manually complete their orders. All other retailers will be updated Thursday, August 11.
Previously the OCS said it would focus on fulfilling orders for its wholesale customers first and would provide more details on each store’s delivery schedule once operations resume.
In the meantime, the OCS has continued to manually accept deliveries of inventory from licensed producers, which would then be entered into the system once the third-party distribution partner, Domain Logistics, is operational.
The OCS informed retailers late Monday night of the Friday cyber attack, which led to delays in product deliveries for retailers.
The provincial cannabis distributor has repeatedly noted that cyber attack does not appear to have compromised the OCS systems or its customers’ information.
Many retailers in Ontario have said a delay of even a few days in their weekly product delivery could lead to product shortages and empty shelves. Many retailers rely on weekly shipments of product both due to financial constraints as well as storage capacity.
UPDATE August 11: Starting today, the OCS will be introducing a cap of 30 cases per store for the next order cycle. Orders will be delivered 6am – 10pm, seven days a week. They could also possibly move to a 24-hour delivery window but will inform retailers beforehand if they do.
Until August 31, “as a temporary goodwill gesture”, the OCS will process payments three days after retailers receive their “Advanced Shipping Notice” that arrives prior to delivery.
