The Co-op is reportedly attempting to circumvent shortages in remote communities by diverting its food and drink supplies to stores in more isolated locations as the retailer continues to grapple with the effects of a cyber-attack which took place last week.

According to a report by The Telegraph, the company is prioritising the delivery of essential goods to its stores on islands and remote locations.

The move follows reports that some of its stores on the Scottish islands have faced food shortages.

The Co-op currently operates 2,500 food stores across the UK which employ more than 62,000 people.

Last week the company said it had pre-emptively withdrawn access to some of its systems, with reports suggesting it had closed down several business services for staff operating stores and its legal services division.

While initially it seemed that the impacts of the incident were minimal due to Co-op's precautionary actions, the company admitted that following forensic investigations it had found that the hackers were able to access and extract data from one of its systems.

“The accessed data included information relating to a significant number of our current and past members," wrote the company in a statement last Friday.

The data included Co-op Group members’ personal data such as names and contact details, but did not include passwords, bank or credit card details.

The hack came after Marks & Spencer experienced a significant breach which impacted its Click & Collect services and contactless payments.

The department store has since paused online orders for almost two weeks.

Not long after the incident at Co-op, Harrods became the third British retailer to be impacted by a cyber-attack in the space of two weeks.

The luxury department store restricted access to its websites in response to the incident.

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