Supermarket shopping trolley thefts on a roll in Pahiatua

Pahiatua New World’s trolley stocks are at an all-time low as shoppers take home their purchases – and the trolley too.

The supermarket’s owneroperator Jason Griggs said numerous trolleys had been stolen over the years, but about half had disappeared in the past few months.

‘‘We’ve probably lost about 40 to 50-odd.

‘‘If you looked at our trolley count about six weeks ago we seemed to have about 50, which is still well short of what we should have, but in the past six weeks we’re down to 25.’’

Griggs said people often took the trolleys home, particularly as the Tararua town doesn’t have a taxi service, but the number of trolleys disappearing daily had become noticeably worse.

‘‘We have a delivery service here and we thought that might fix it.

‘‘It’s $5 to deliver their groceries home for them because we thought that would help, but no,’’ Griggs said.

Many of the trolleys were purchased secondhand and cost between $50 and $100, but trolleys with a baby carriage cost up to $400. At the request of customers, they had also purchased larger trolleys at a cost of $220 each.

‘‘Now I only have about six left and we bought about 25 of those.’’

Griggs said they did regular tours around town to pick up trolleys that had not been returned and had looked at other avenues to stop them being taken, but they were either impractical or too expensive.

Griggs said the loss of trolleys wasn’t just a Pahiatua issue, but a supermarket issue.

Antoinette Laird, head of external relations for New World’s parent company Foodstuffs, said trolley theft was a problem at some stores and they went missing for a wide variety of reasons.

The cost of the trolleys taken was borne by each owner-operator.

‘‘There are additional costs if an owner chooses to add trolley security, such as the wheel-lock technology.’’

People who had trolleys for collection can let the Pahiatua supermarket know, and they would be picked up, no questions asked.