Retail crime cost The Co-op £70m last year, according to food managing director Matt Hood, as the mutual turns to AI to stamp out theft at self-checkouts.
The Co-op said incidents of shoplifting, abuse, violence and anti-social behaviour increased by 44% last year, as it faced an average of 1,000 incidents each day.
“Last year, we experienced something like £70m worth of loss because of the ongoing retail crime epidemic. However, the real costs is the physical and mental wellbeing of our fellow colleagues as much as the goods that disappear from our shelves,” said Hood.
“The reality is every day four of my colleagues will be attacked and a further 116 colleagues will be seriously abused.”
His comments come as shoplifting offences across England and Wales surged to their highest rate in 20 years, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), with more than 400,000 incidents recorded by police during the year to September 2023, 32% above the previous year.
Hood insisted that more needed to be done from a legislative perspective in England to deter criminals as he pointed out that 80% of reported incidents result in an arrest in Scotland, compared to just 10% south of the border.
In Scotland, it is a standalone offence to assault or abuse a retail worker, something retailers are petitioning the government to introduce nationwide.
In October, the BRC and 88 retail leaders from firms including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Primark, and Boots signed a letter calling for the change, and also for a greater prioritisation of retail crime by police.
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Hood shared that police failed to attend 79% of incidents last year where a criminal had been detained.
“We are 100% committed to tackling it and to making our colleagues safe and over £200m has been spent over recent years in safety and insecurity. But as an industry we can’t fix this on our own.”
The Co-op Group CEO Shirine Khoury Haq concurred: “We need people to pay attention, we need society to pay attention, and we need the government and police to pay attention.”
Despite Hood highlighting that retail crime is driven by “repeat prolific offenders”, he revealed that The Co-op was also taking action to stamp out “middle class” theft at self-checkouts, a trend that M&S chair Archie Norman previously highlighed.
Hood said despite evidence pointing to the fact that self-checkouts do lead to an increase in shrinkage, he would not strip them out of stores as they make “convenience more convenient”.
Instead the mutual is linking AI to CCTV cameras to track what items are put into bags at self-checkouts.
The Co-op unveiled its full-year results today which showed that underlying operating profit at its food retail business increased by 11% to £154m. Sales were marginally down, due to the sale of the group’s petrol forecourt business to Asda, however, rose 4.3% when the impact of the disposal was excluded.
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