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Marks & Spencer has been accused of ruining weddings and birthday parties as a cyber attack triggers a shortage of Colin the Caterpillar cakes.
Disgruntled shoppers have complained that an online outage has scuppered orders of Colin the Caterpillar cakes ahead of key celebrations.
One couple who ordered a special 40-portion giant version of the cake for their wedding have been left in the lurch as M&S paused online orders for the eighth day in a row.
Carly Gentry, who is preparing for her wedding with fiance Edward Church next weekend, told The Sun: “It is stressful you don’t know 10 days before you get married if you will be able to get a cake. It has messed our big day up and is causing stress.”
Ann Lee, a retired conveyancer, said her son was also getting married soon and was planning to order large Colin and Connie the Caterpillar cakes, which cost £50 each, for collection.
She wrote on X: “It would be a lot more helpful if the stores would accept orders whilst waiting for this situation to be sorted.”
‘National emergency’
Customers also complained that the cake shortage had thrown children’s birthday parties into disarray.
One wrote: “I’ve got a very upset 8-year-old on her birthday who’s been told she can’t use her Colin the Caterpillar E-Gift card to buy her cake for her party.
“She’s been excited all day and we’re told your Camberley store isn’t accepting gift cards.”
In a sign of how widespread the impact of the cyber attack has been, one shopper in Hong Kong said: “They’re out of stock of Colin the Caterpillar cakes and I have a child’s birthday coming up. Disastrous.”
While the Colin crisis has caused chaos for many customers, others had a more light-hearted response.
One declared the cake shortage a “national emergency”, while another jokingly suggested that Aldi’s Cuthbert the Caterpillar could be behind the cyber attack “due to his ongoing beef with Colin the Caterpillar”.
Other cakes have also been affected. Michelle Borkertas, from Peterborough, said she ordered a two-tier vanilla wedding cake prior to the outage but is now unsure whether it will arrive.
She said: “I don’t know if I’ve got a wedding cake or not and I don’t know how long I leave that until.”
Second week of disruption
Ms Borkertas said M&S staff had been “really helpful” but said she was preparing to buy a back-up cake from Asda on the day if necessary.
An M&S spokesman said: “We’ve written to 4,000 customers this morning to share the good news that we can fulfil their food orders to be collected in store. Unfortunately, a small proportion of orders cannot be fulfilled; we’ve made these customers aware, organised a refund and are truly sorry for the inconvenience.”