Shepparton Cannery XS was left without electricity on Wednesday morning after power provider Essential Energy cut supplies for routine maintenance.

However, while other businesses and residents had been informed of the blackout, Shepparton Cannery XS owner Craig English only learned of it when his premises went dark at 9am.

After phoning Essential Energy, Mr English was told power would be off until 2pm and he should have been told of the planned outage but there was confusion about which power grid supplied his site.

His concerns about perishable goods and lost trade had an impact and power was restored ahead of predictions at 10.30am.

“We’ve probably lost $5000 worth of sales due to Essential Energy stuffing things up,” Mr English said.

“How can they do it without letting us know and then do it during trading hours anyway?

“I said to him ‘why can’t you do it on Sunday after we close at 4pm?’ and he said ‘we can’t do overtime’.”

Mr English suspects when he moved sites in Urana Road in October 2012 records were not updated and that led to the non-notification.

Essential Energy admitted “a data integrity issue resulted in supply being inadvertently interrupted to a premise in Urana Road”.

It added “as soon as Essential Energy was notified of the error, steps were taken to immediately restore power to all customers within 90 minutes”.

Essential Energy’s Southern regional manager Steven Ilitch expressed regret. 

“We are committed to delivering high standards of customer service, and I can assure you that the data issue relating to this particular customer has now been rectified,” Mr Ilitch said.

Essential Energy is required by legislation to provides all customers with at least four business days notice of any planned power outage.

Haus of Meat butcher Mark Bolinghaus, who adjoins the grocery, was hit too.

“We had 10 people there in the dark, it was pitch black,” Mr Bolinghaus said.

Casuals were sent home, leaving them without a day’s pay.