Stock-lifting epidemic! Now Tesco has to slap safety tags on £2.85 packets of Oxo (however not the vegetable ones!)
As a temptation to the light-fingered, they’re hardly in the same league as fine Scotch whisky or even fillet steak.
But in a desperate attempt to foil shoplifters, Tesco has now been forced to put security tags on packets of Oxo stock cubes.
Amid Britain’s shoplifting crisis, the tags were spotted on boxes of the beef-flavoured cubes in a branch of Tesco Express in Croydon, South London – despite them costing a mere £2.85.
Consumer experts said the move may deter potential thieves from sweeping contents of entire shelves into a bag – as anything small, with a decent resale value, had become a ‘prime target’.
Workers at the store told The Mail on Sunday that the tags were added after a shoplifter stole ‘a whole tray’ of cubes last month.
But alternatives including vegetarian and low salt are usually ignored by the thieves. One said: ‘With a lot of the more expensive products we sell, like wine, we place security labels on all of the bottles as a deterrent. But with less expensive items, like this Oxo cube, we place a tag on just one. We do that to try to catch out shoplifters if they take the whole tray. The reality is they are taking the things they steal here and selling them on at the off-licences on the street corners.’
Incidents have more than doubled since the pandemic, with retailers reporting a loss of £2.2billion annually due to theft, which is increasingly driven by criminal gangs. Stores including Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Boots started locking high-value items such as alcohol, chocolate, steaks, medicines and cosmetics inside hard plastic security boxes which would set off alarms if snatched.
Oxo boxes tagged with security labels were spotted in the Tesco Express in Croydon, south London
Pictured: An exterior view of the Tesco Express in Croydon where the security tags were seen on Oxo packets
Last month, it emerged that cold remedies, including £2.15 boxes of Nurofen and £4.50 packets of Lemsip, were also being fitted with tags amid a surge in winter bugs.
But the Oxo thefts suggest even small essentials are now targets.
Martyn James, independent consumer champion, said: ‘For many people, the tagging of Oxo cubes might suggest the absolute downfall of a society blighted by shoplifters. It’s certainly a worry thinking that something that costs less than £3 might be a target.’ Meanwhile, the Tesco worker added: ‘A few weeks ago one man came in and stole some items and the police actually saw him and stopped him.
‘They took him down the road, but when they turned left they just let him go. He came back within ten minutes and was stealing again. We couldn’t believe it.’
In January, the Metropolitan Police revealed that a trial of facial recognition cameras in the London borough had helped cut robbery and shoplifting and had led to more than 100 arrests.
Tesco was contacted by the MoS for comment last night.
