Cheese and baby food top list of stolen items

Cheese, fresh meats, and baby food are among the most common items stolen from supermarkets, as shoplifting rates soar.

A survey by Retail Ireland, published yesterday, found that 52% of retailers had experienced an increase in crime in the last two years, while 82% had experienced shoplifting.

Retail Ireland estimates that shoplifting equates to an overall loss to businesses of €512m a year.

Although the types of products being shoplifted was not looked at, Retail Ireland director Stephen Lynam pointed to research from the Centre for Retail Research in Britain, which he believed was mirrored in Ireland.

It showed that, across Europe, the most popular products now being stolen from supermarkets are cheese, fresh meat, cooked meat, alcohol, sweets and confectionery, and infant formula.

Mr Lynam said he believed the majority of this was not being stolen for consumption but for resale in a thriving black market.

“I don’t believe, in the main, that it’s because people are stealing to feed themselves,” he said. “I think it’s because there is a black market there for products to be resold and for people to buy such goods off the back of a truck and places like that.”

During the summer, 57-year-old out-of-work actor Joe Purcell hit the headlines when he admitted stealing groceries as he could not face telling his three children that there was no bread and milk in the house.

St Vincent de Paul Cork regional vice-president Brendan Dempsey said he was sceptical of the view people were stealing to fuel a black market.

“I am not saying it doesn’t happen,” he said. I can’t see anyone stealing sliced cheese or a loaf of bread just so they can sell it off the back of a lorry, for example.

“All of these horror stories are from a hidden Ireland that politicians have only heard rumours of but just can’t seem to understand.

“We spent €250,000 on refurbishing the lord mayor’s office in Cork so, as far as I’m concerned, they are living in a world of their own on this issue.”

Mr Dempsey said while he had yet to encounter people who had admitted to shoplifting, families were going without food as money was so tight.

“Nobody has admitted to shoplifting to us, and it’s not something that people would admit to as it’s a crime,” said Mr Dempsey.

“However, I can tell you for certain that we are visiting homes where people are definitely going hungry. We are coming across people that have nothing in the fridge or in the cupboard.”