People who steal from food stores in Europe have recently spoken out about how smart shoplifters are getting.
They said that they lost more money than they made in 2023 because shoplifting is getting easier to hide.
Ton Van Veen, CEO of the Jumbo grocery store chain, said, “Sometimes you fall over in shock when you see how creative people are to steal things.” A lot of the time, people are caught not scanning items or paying at the checkout. People are getting smarter about how to avoid paying for things.
Jumbo is a group of grocery stores in Europe with more than 700 stores. When the company talked about its earnings, it said that the value of the stolen goods was 25% higher than the money the shops made. The store group said that shoplifting cost them about $100 million and that they expect to make $88 million a year after taxes.
The company said in a statement about the losses, “In many stores, the loss due to stolen goods now amounts to around 1% of turnover, and store employees are faced with unpleasant situations and increased tensions.”
People who work at Jumbo said that stealing is becoming more common and popular, especially since the cost of living is going up. From 2022 to 2023, there were 60% more cases of shoplifting.
Jumbo even said that they and other shops have started to hire security guards to stop people from stealing things.
Some studies have shown how worrying this problem is getting and how widespread it is. One said that in Belgium, 40% of people would take something from the store that they didn’t pay for when they left.
