Concerns grow over ‘stealing to order’ UK retail confectionery thefts

The latest figures from the Crime Survey for England Wales published recently, found shop thefts were up by 5%, to a troubling 519,381 during the past 12 months – and that’s just the ones that are recorded.

Disturbingly, as has been reported in national media over the past few days, confectionery, and particularly chocolate is increasingly being targeted by organised gangs, and stolen to oder.

This is clearly a highly unacceptable situation, which has left some superstores including Sainsbury’s resorting to measures of keeping chocolate ranges such as Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bars in locked boxes on shelves. This seems a very draconian measure indeed, yet we have seen it in other related segments, where high value items such as Manuka honey, or in other sections, such as toiletries, extra security measures are routinely placed in stores. 

This an especially sad situation which reflects wider challenges in society that have seen communities under financial pressure resorting to shop lifting, though this has increasingly shifted towards organised crime being a central part of the problem. Neither scenarios are acceptable, but as retailers have noted, stretched police resources mean that thieves have become increasingly confident in their targeting of stores. 

This in turn has led to other measures such as facial cameras being placed on self-checkout tills in a bid to combat such crimes, which sadly appear to be continuing on an upward curve. 

As James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores noted, these are major losses on a national level that can’t simply be written-off, and are having a key impact on traders.

He said: “Tackling theft, abuse, robbery and other retail crime is a top priority for local shops, with over half a billion pounds spent in the last two years on crime prevention and detection measures. The official figures continue to highlight the challenges facing convenience stores, but they still pale in comparison to the reality faced by retailers and their colleagues.”

Quite what solutions there are to this clearly significant problem are hard to fathom, especially with levels of comparative poverty and social deprivation rising in the UK, which is supposedly among the top 10 wealthiest nations on earth – which from situations like this, it feels like that is anything but the case.

Neill Barston, editor, Confectionery Production

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