Co-op tackles ‘surge’ in middleclass shoplifting after £70m hit

CO-OP is to tackle a surge in middle-class shoplifting after it suffered a £70million hit from store thefts last year.

Matt Hood, the Co-op Food managing director, said it was installing more artificial intelligence (AI) technology in its convenience stores to monitor what customers were putting in their shopping bags at its self-service checkouts.

He said: “We are looking at what we can do around AI and what we can do with that linkage to our CCTV cameras.”

This would help them to “reduce the potential increase in middle-class crime”, Mr Hood said, adding there was “some evidence” that self-service machines led to more theft. It follows moves by US rivals to start pulling the technology from stores in a bid to reduce shoplifting rates.

Marks & Spencer chairman Archie Norman recently claimed that shoplifting was “creeping in” among the middle classes when people were using self-service machines. In November, Mr Norman said: “It’s too easy to say it’s a cost of living problem. Some of this shoplifting is gangs. Then you get the middle class. With the reduction of service you get in a lot of shops, a lot of people think: ‘This didn’t scan properly, or it’s very difficult to scan these things through and I shop here all the time. It’s not my fault, I’m owed it’.”

It comes as retailers battle to keep a lid on rising theft and attacks in stores.

Mr Hood said the company had spent £200 million over the past few years to try to protect its staff and its stores, including putting dummy packets on shelves, securing kiosks and putting locking doors on high-value products.

However, he said last year the company had still lost around £70million through “shrinkage”, the term used to refer to stolen, damaged or lost stock.

Co-op said its stores were hit by more than 336,000 incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour last year – equal to almost 1,000 incidents every day. Mr Hood has warned that police are not coming to help staff even when they have caught culprits. Its figures show police were not attending 79 per cent of incidents where it detained criminals.

Mr Hood said: “However, the real cost is the mental well-being of our store colleagues”

It echoes concerns among convenience stores bosses with the Association of Convenience Stores saying that shop theft was up fivefold last year.

Co-op chief executive Shirine Khoury-haq said: “If you look at the sort of retail crime that we’ve been seeing, being a small store operator makes us more vulnerable to that sort of retail crime in that people intent on theft can get in and out of a small store much more easily than a large store.”

‘A lot of people think: “This didn’t scan properly and I shop here all the time. It’s not my fault, I’m owed it”’