On May 14, 2026, moments before the lunch-order peak, Wolt notified users of a 'global technical malfunction' preventing new orders. According to TheMarker, the malfunction affected all of Wolt's markets worldwide, not just Israel. Service resumed within about an hour to an hour and a half (Maariv reports about an hour, Calcalist about an hour and a half). On May 27, the scenario repeated: again during the lunch rush, the app stopped accepting new orders, and thousands of orders were stuck. Globes and Calcalist both describe the event as 'the third time this month' — meaning that beyond the two documented incidents here (May 14 and May 27), there was at least one additional occurrence not identified in the sources gathered for this project. According to Globes, the malfunction originated within the app itself (per company sources), and customers whose orders were delayed were compensated under Wolt's compensation policy, based on order size and delay severity. On the same day (May 27), Globes also published an interview with Yafit Chion, VP of Customer Service at Wolt, who spoke at the Israel Service Conference 2026. Chion described the challenge as a 'value triangle' encompassing customers, businesses, and couriers, and said the company uses AI to detect load patterns and extract insights.