Tesco places security tags and nets around £3 QUALITY STREET boxes
by Mark Duell · Mail OnlineFor decades, boxes of Quality Street and then Celebrations have been a staple part of Christmas shopping and a common present for friends and relatives.
But in a sign of the times, Tesco is putting security tags and nets on the products amid the shoplifting epidemic - despite them costing just £3 and £3.75 respectively.
Other chocolate treats also now facing increased security at the chain's Covent Garden store include Guylian Seashells, Ferrero Rocher boxes and even Toblerone.
Tesco supermarkets are understood to take an individual approach to security protection, and the policy on chocolate is not universal across all its 2,800 stores.
It comes after Tesco took steps to improve security on other items such as Cathedral City cheese and Dairy Milk bars, which are now found in plastic boxes.
Other chains have employed their own methods, with Asda spotted putting security tags on condoms and Co-op placing dummy coffee jars on its shelves.
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Tesco has put heavy-duty padlocks on fridges to stop shoplifters stealing bottles of champagne, while Morrisons brought in a 'Buzz for Booze' button that requires staff to unlock alcohol fridges for customers.
And Sainsbury's has replaced bottles with cardboard cutouts, with signs telling shoppers to go to the customer services desk if they wanted to buy them.
It comes after Yvette Cooper said she was drawing up powers to crack down on shoplifting and street yobbery – after being shocked that even fabric conditioner bottles are being fitted with anti-theft tags.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, the Home Secretary pledged to abolish the rule that stolen goods worth under £200 counts as 'low-value shoplifting' with lighter punishments for thieves.
In her speech to Labour's party conference in Liverpool, Ms Cooper will accuse the Conservatives of having written off meaningful punishments for other so-called low-level crime, such as anti-social behaviour and criminal damage.
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She will promise to put 13,000 more police and PCSOs on the streets, introduce zero-tolerance zones with fixed-penalty fines of up to £500 and bring in powers to seize the off-road bikes increasingly used by criminals.
Last month, retailers called for tougher police action on shoplifting after it was revealed that only 431 fines were issued for the offence in a year.
Figures from the Ministry of Justice show that, in the year to March 2014, 19,419 fines were handed out for retail theft under £100.
This decreased year on year to 415 in the year to March 2023, and rose slightly to 431 in the year to March 2024.
Home Office figures show that 2,252 cautions were accepted for shoplifting in the year to March 2024.
In the 12 months to March 2015, there were 279,567 shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales, of which 12,916 resulted in a caution.
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Shoplifting hit a 20-year high in the year to March 2024, with 443,995 offences recorded by police in England and Wales.
The most recent figures released for the outcomes of recorded crimes show that, of 436,171 cases of shoplifting, 71,741 led to a criminal charge in the year to March 2024.
The British Retail Consortium has called for retail crime to be made a top priority for police.
Its latest crime survey showed losses to theft doubled in the last year to £1.8billion, and retailers had to spend a further £1.2billion on anti-crime measures.
The Association of Convenience Stores has also insisted that action is needed to tackle repeat offenders. Tesco declined to comment to MailOnline today.