I have at least one big chain story around me that doesn't even have cams on the meat section. No cams in the whole food half of the store, while the rest of the store is covered in cams. Liquor does have cams of course.
I imagine the focus will be shifting more and more to food as prices continue to skyrocket and bags of chips run into the $10 range.
Obviously, but we all just cogs in the giant machine until it completely breaks down people will do their jobs, even if that means slapping charges on folks putting food in their mouths.
are you in the country or in a metropolitan area?
Lansing Michigan 500k population.
When it breaks down, where will you be?
I don’t give a fiddlers fuck if people steal groceries. Now you come to the liquor aisle or electronics or Carhartt…..I don’t like your chances lol
Depends entirely on what items are being stolen most often, and what the specific company or store wants to prioritize.
We don’t really give a shit about grocery in our store. Our district management is the same way, they’d get pissed if we pulled cameras off of merch to put it on grocery. The only caveat is alcohol.
Sounds about what I've noticed local
Also, internal theft/consumption. I've going having camera coverage of the fresh grocery area and enough to track movement through dry grocery has been pretty useful.
My store had way fewer PTZs in grocery so I don't prioritize grocery theft. I still stop it every time I see it and am obviously more empathetic when it's regular food and not expensive steaks, fish, or alcohol
Sounds fair.
Look, no one is keeping an eye on the canned goods. I never saw anyone stealing shelf stable/canned, staple foods while working in AP. I saw plenty of people stealing meat and alcohol and candy. But never necessary items.
Fresh non processed non canned foods aren’t necessary? We eat what’s necessary usually, so are you saying you only eat canned foods?
Weirdly enough, never actually saw anyone stealing fresh fruit/veg. Only fresh things I saw people stealing were meats to resell. But I find it's just more common for those in need to rely on shelf stable food products as it allows them to flexibly make food to their needs.
I think aside from reselling I see most shoplifters taking meat and carbs (boxes of pasta, and bags of rice) and a few chronic repeats that take for personal gain at my store
Look, if you see someone stealing a bag of rice, no you didn't. If you see someone stealing 10 bags of rice, that's different.
Built a case for 2 teen girls that put 3 bags of rice and 2 packs of ribeye along with some chips and some sodas last week. And a regular that goes to the deli and gets a sandwich made (it’s the same chicken tender sub) at least 2-3 times a week’s and walks straight out (Publix)
Yeah once you put meat in, eyes open up. Chips and soda too, tbh. I'm empathetic, but at that point it's nkt about survival.
Wait what? Meat is your threshold?
Generally, yes. Meat isn't a necessity. It can spoil quickly without proper storage, and is easy to resell. And again, its hardly ever people slipping a single pound of ground beef, it's people concealing several steaks.
Facts!
I think that's changing is my point.
I think most AP personnel will continue to not see theft of canned/staple foods. There's other fish to fry. Watching a struggling mom slip a couple cans of beans into her purse isn't it.
There's other fish to fry. Watching a struggling mom slip a couple cans of beans into her purse isn't it.
Well, yah, they’re usually kept in the meat department, not the canned goods department. Well, except for canned tuna, but you don’t want to fry that.
When I was at Target we didn’t have any cameras in grocery other than the liquor aisle. I did a shift at one super high shortage store that had a grocery PTZ but that was a luxury.
People mostly boost for profit. There's no money to be made in grabbing cans of pork and beans. In my area, I live in the Seattle area. What's really popular is the meat, steaks, porterhouse, filet mignon. Liquor, cases of beer, Modelo especially the 24 pack bottles, baby formula, diapers. Believe it or not, the high end spices too, like Saffron.
Probably because lots of meat get thrown away anyways do to its fast sell by date
I watch some specific grocery. We see a lot of expensive oils (Truffle is huge!) and spendy small items like $4 Crystal Light concentrate and other water enhancers since they can easily be concealed.
At the place I currently work at we have a couple cameras on the grocery sections, but the vast majority of them are focused on other merchandise. Granted, out grocery section is very small compared to the other merchandise sections. With that being said, I did work security at a grocery store and I can say that they do get a ton of theft. It was not uncommon for me to stop people from pushing out carts full of steak, bacon, chips, etc. A tactic I actually saw fairly often was people covering up more expensive items, like meat, with bags of chips. I understand why stores may focus on other merchandise, but with inflation I would say stores are losing more in groceries than they realize.
I don’t really need cameras in grocery. When people steal food they’re typically going to under-ring right under a camera at the register. Concealment of groceries happens, but not often. And when it does happen, they’re more likely to take the items to GM (where there are plenty of cameras) and conceal there, grocery side is usually too busy and people-dense.
I find most grocery theft is scan and go mobile be it Meijer, Walmart, Sam's club, etc. Many people even bring in their own bags to load stuff as they shop.
It's way harder at Kroger which utilizes both the advanced camera system AND the scale.
Meijer and Walmart near me use no scale on only camera
Meijer and Walmart also have scan and go by phone.
I don't think Kroger has that yet...
Walmart does have a huge problem with Scan and Go. They bag up everything in these beautiful, stylish shopping totes while they're perusing the store and add they quite a few bonus items like Tide Pods and Dove soap. They genuinely believe that Walmart doesn't care and they won't do anything about it.
Isn’t there a bigger problem if chips bags cost 10 dollars? What do you think the solution is?