Crime levels across the North Island's New World, PAK'nSAVE and Four Square stores are up by nearly 40% in the February to April quarter this year, compared to the same period last year.
In one incident, a repeat offender stole 31 whole eye, scotch, and sirloin fillets over a period of weeks, valued at almost $3200. Foodstuffs' security specialists say the behaviour indicates it's being stolen to order, or to sell.
It comes as Foodstuffs North Island has today released new retail crime figures showing the scale of the issue being faced by grocery store owners and their teams in stores. The data also reveals emerging trends in criminal behaviour.
It comes as one of the country's largest supermarket chains says its stores have experienced a big increase in crime. (Source: 1News)
"Our grocers have never seen retail crime at these levels. It's an extremely concerning trend and it's unacceptable," chief executive of Foodstuffs North Island Chris Quin said.
"Retail crime is coming through the front doors of grocery stores and impacting our teams every day. Grocers are focused on keeping their people safe and that means investing in de-escalation and conflict management training and helping people to cope in a situation which involves aggression," he said.
The number of shoplifting incidents has increased by 57% compared with the February to April quarter last year, and grocers say shoplifters are becoming increasingly aggressive and violent. Repeat offenders are responsible for 36% of all retail crime incidents and the number of repeat offenders has increased by 34% from last year.
Stores combat crime uniquely
The upward trend in crime is being dealt with uniquely across some New World, PAK'nSAVE and Four Square stores.
"It's a sad reality that retail crime is on the rise. All our stores are individually owned and operated by local people. This means our stores use a variety of different security measures to help keep teams and customers safe, and the tools used at each store vary depending on the needs of their community," Foodstuffs spokesperson Emma Wooster said.
"This can range from CCTV cameras, uniformed and plain clothed security team members and training to de-escalate situations. A small portion of stores have chosen to use body cams as another tool to help keep team members safe.
"In an attempt to proactively reduce serious incidents in stores and meet our safety responsibilities to customers and teams, Foodstuffs North Island is going to trial facial recognition technology."
"A trial of facial recognition technology has not started and facial recognition technology is not being used by Foodstuffs. The co-op is working closely with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and discussing specifics of how the trial could work with their support," Wooster said.
Staff threatened and abused
"I see the reports of what our store owners and their people are dealing with on a daily basis, and it's distressing when we have people threatening our team members with weapons and throwing punches. Every New Zealander has the right to work in a safe and secure environment and not be threatened, assaulted, spat on, yelled at, or racially abused as they go about their working day," Quin said.
"Our 320 grocers serve just about every community in the North Island so that combines to provide what we think is one of the biggest data sets charting retail crime, and the impact it has on our teams and customers.
"We want to share this information to help everyone understand the extent of the issue so we can work together to find solutions to continue to keep our people and customers safe," Quin said.
"Our local grocers collectively support 24,000 team members and 2.7 million New Zealanders who shop at their stores every week. It's important we fully understand the nature of retail crime so we can evolve our security and safety strategies and ensure we're doing all we can to keep our people safe while providing New Zealanders with a safe place to shop."
Serious incidents such as burglary, assault, robbery, and other aggressive, violent, and threatening behaviour are up 36% on the February to April quarter for last year.
"The trend we're increasingly seeing is professional criminals who're stealing brand-specific goods to order. That's not something we've seen before at these levels," Quin said.
Foodstuffs North Islands' security and loss prevention teams have identified incidents of co-ordinated crime involving individuals or groups who are stealing to order and to on-sell. In one case, which is currently before the courts, tens of thousands of dollars' worth of non-perishable goods were allegedly stolen over a period of months and shipped overseas.
Premium cuts of meat, and high value health and beauty products are the most targeted items for theft, the supermarket chain said.
Shoplifters who are identified are trespassed where appropriate, but it's not easy keeping repeat offenders from returning to the store to reoffend. Foodstuffs North Island recorded 254 cases of customers breaching trespass notices in the February to April 2023 quarter.
"There are three key drivers of retail crime which our security specialists believe are driving most of these crimes. They're saying it's professional criminals who're stealing to order or to on-sell, its often people struggling with addiction and they're stealing to fund or fuel their addiction, and its groups of youths who’re committing destructive acts which they film and then post on social media," Quin said.
"Retail crime went up in every region of the North Island in the February to April quarter, except Hawke's Bay and Gisborne which were heavily impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle."
Quin said Foodstuffs is keen to work with the police, government and community leaders to tackle retail crime.
Police partnering with supermarkets to combat crime
The National Retail Investigation Support Unit (NRISU) was set up in November 2021. The internal police unit is managed by Matt Tierney who told 1News it works "very closely with supermarket groups on crime prevention initiatives".
The unit has been fully operational since May 2022 and in March, Tierney said its focused work resulted in 1000 retail crime charges against 178 offenders.
Police data to April 2023 shows the rise in retail crime has steadily increased since 2021.
In response to an Official Information Act request, Tierney elaborated on the unit's work in the retail sector.
"The NRISU partners with the retail sector and crime prevention organisations at a national level and works with police staff at a district level to assist them to specifically target offenders causing the greatest harm to the retail sector, its staff and customers.
"The NSIRU is working closely with supermarkets, providing advice around installing crime prevention security and training staff in prevention techniques," Tierney said.
"Police also employs intelligence-lead deployment of police staff, which can entail police staff being deployed to supermarkets at peak times."
He told 1News the unit primarily focuses on repeat criminals while working closely with the retail sector as a whole on crime prevention initiatives and activities.
"As a general rule we do not target first time offenders. The NRISU focuses on patterns of high harm repeat offending across the country, with a particular focus on those who use violence and intimidation of staff whilst stealing from shops.
"The NRISU identifies prolific and aggressive shoplifters though a number of software platforms when people report crime to police. Once identified, we look at that offender's total crime harm and then they are then put forward for investigation.
"Initially the unit was tasked with dealing with the most violent prolific and aggressive shoplifters in the retail sector in New Zealand. Whilst keeping this as a priority, we now also work closely with the retail sector on prevention initiatives and activities, and we work to identify/disrupt and target retail crime as a whole."
Countdown keeps crime stats private
A spokesperson for Countdown said it hasn't taken its internal crime reporting public, but says in recent years it has stepped up measures to track offending.
"A number of these security measures are critical for keeping our team and customers safe and it wouldn't be appropriate to make these publicly known," the spokesperson said, adding "our reporting is for internal purposes and covers a range of incidents, not just retail crime".
"Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic we have seen a significant increase in aggressive, threatening, and brazen behaviour in our stores and particularly targeted towards our team.
"This is unacceptable and keeping our team safe from violence and aggression is a key priority for our business.
"In the last couple of years, we have actively worked to increase the use of reporting tools across our business so that we can track a number of key incident metrics including verbal abuse, physical/threatening behaviour and retail theft."
The spokesperson said the tools include "specific team training for dealing with these types of situations, store design initiatives, push to talk radios and use of CCTV.
"It's also critical that we continue to build strong relationships with both local and national police, community groups and other retailers — and we're prioritising doing this."
Countdown also holds regular meetings with the police retail support unit, and provides information on recidivist offenders.
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