For the past few weeks, videos and photographs of meat with a lock have been circulating on social networks. Whether simple devices identical to those of clothingor large boxes that surround the product, everything seems to be implemented by large retailers to prevent theft.
“Macron has starved the French so well that supermarkets are putting locks on meat and fish,” comments a user. “With inflation these products are so expensive that they have no other choice,” says another. Is it true ? 20 minutes explains to you.
FAKE OFF
For many years you can see a small anti-theft badge stuck on products in supermarkets. But what surprises today are the devices that are more and more frequent and more and more resistant.
On the air of RTL, in March, Thierry Cotillard, president of the “Les Mousquetaires” group explained : “We anti-theft meat and certain fish, it’s new. However, some brands do not report an increase in thefts in their stores. This is for example the case of System U, whose spokesperson declared that “there is no explosion of shoplifting”. For Michel-Edouard Leclerc, shoplifting “is not a subject” in the stores of his brand, and he does not intend to use locks for his meat.
The figures of shoplifting to qualify
Some brands are thus choosing to “anti-theft” more and more basic products. Magnetic labels affixed to the back of food packaging remain easy to peel off. So, indeed, steaks or chicken breast can end up protected in boxes, which were previously reserved for much more expensive products, such as mobile phones. If the decline in purchasing power is an advanced cause, the proliferation of automatic checkouts, less monitored, also has a lot to do with it.
The Ministry of the Interior has noted a 14% increase in shoplifting in 2022. An increase that corresponds to that of food prices: + 13.3% in one year. But it is also possible to see that this phenomenon is not unique to last year. In 2018 and 2019, there were many more than now. These figures should be qualified: these are only recorded thefts, therefore those reported to the police by store managers.
Faced with exploding demand from retailers, anti-theft specialists are bringing new products to market. They even develop specific protections for preserves, sausages, shampoo bottles, cans…