retail environment
Stock loss through theft dwarfed by cost to staff
The Co-op’s managing director of food, Matt Hood, has said the monetary cost of shoplifting pales compared to its impact on staff members.
The grocery boss said it estimated “around £39m of loss” during its first half, which was up 19% on last year amid the ongoing crime epidemic which has seen the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales reaching a new twenty-year peak.
In the year leading up to March 2024, a total of 443,995 offences were reported by police forces, marking a 30 per cent increase from the 342,428 incidents logged in the previous year.
According to the Office for National statistics (ONS), this figure is the highest since records started in March 2003.
Mr Hood said: “It is really important for me to point out that the monetary cost is small compared to the physical and mental wellbeing of all of my store colleagues who face this issue every single day.”
“It just fundamentally shouldn’t be part of their job.”
The executive added he thought shoplifting was becoming “more brazen” and described the fact that it was “investing in things that put people off shoplifting” as “the key”.
He noted the business was spending £27 million annually on security and guarding, over £5 million on fortified and more secure kiosks, and £3m on new CCTV, AI and other future ways of making its stores “as safe as possible”.
Despite all this, he claimed that rampant retail crime was not having an impact on its recruitment of staff to the retailer.
“We are a business that people want to be part of,” he insisted.
“We are not actively seeing that it’s a challenge in terms of recruiting for people to work in our stores or wanting to be part of Co-op.”
It comes after the Co-op experienced its highest level of crime in its stores as shoplifting across the UK hit a twenty-year high earlier this month.
Public affairs and board secretariat director Paul Gerrard told the House of Lords' Justice and Home Affairs Committee that levels of crime were up by 44 per cent in its stores, and that violence and abuse incidents had risen by 35 per cent.
