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The Co-op has revealed that groceries worth £80mn were stolen from its stores last year, providing further evidence of the heavy toll that shoplifting is taking on the UK’s retailers.
The member-owned group, which also has funeral care, legal and insurance businesses, said on Thursday that stock losses from theft rose more than 14 per cent last year.
Shoplifting has been a scourge for the retail industry since a wave of inflation eroded consumer spending power in the wake of the pandemic. Theft from shops reached £2.2bn last year in the UK, up from £1.8bn the previous year, according to industry data. Retailers are also contending with rising levels of violence and abuse against staff.
Marks and Spencer’s chair Archie Norman cited the role of self checkouts, which make it easier for customers to steal groceries without a staff member on hand to monitor their behaviour. Supermarket J Sainsbury has begun installing cameras above self checkouts, which can track whether consumers are keying in the correct groceries.
Primark’s owner previously said shoplifting was costing it more than its annual £70mn business rates bill. Poundland, the struggling discount chain, took a £40mn hit from theft last year.
The Labour government has put forward a bill that will scrap a rule deeming the theft of goods worth less than £200 as merely a “summary offence” with limited sentencing powers. Retailers had complained that the rule, as well as a lack of enforcement from thinly resourced police, had decriminalised low-level theft.
The financial toll from shoplifting adds to the raft of cost pressures facing the industry.
The Co-op, which operates 2,300 convenience stores across the UK, said it expected further annual costs of £80mn, mainly from national insurance contributions and a levy designed to reduce unsustainable packaging.
Chief executive Shirine Khoury-Haq said her “real concern is around consumer confidence” and costs arising from the tax increases in Labour’s October Budget.
She insisted, however, that the Co-op was well-positioned to weather the storm. The company’s profit before tax jumped by £133mn to £161mn last year, mainly off the back of a stronger performance in its funeral care business. Group revenues were flat at £11.3bn.
The Co-op is on track to open more than 120 stores by the end of 2025.
