Iceland Foods will reward its shoppers with the equivalent of £1 to spend in its stores if they help to identify shoplifters, in a bid to stamp out retail crime.
From 14 August, anyone who witnesses shoplifting in an Iceland or Food Warehouse store and alerts staff, will be given a £1 “top-up” on their bonus card which they can then redeem in store if the crime is proven.
Iceland is “strongly encouraging” shoppers not to directly interact with criminals, but to alert the nearest member of staff. They’ll be able to redeem their £1 in store “immediately”.
Executive chairman Richard Walker announced the incentive on Wednesday evening, during an appearance on Channel 5 News to talk about the impact of record retail crime levels on stores. The supermarket then officially confirmed the move in an update to customers.
“Some people see it [retail crime] as a victimless crime, it is not,” Walker told Channel 5 host Dan Walker.
“It also keeps prices from being lowered, because it’s a cost to the business, it’s a cost to the hours that we pay to our colleagues as well as obviously being about intimidation and violence.”
Like other retail bosses, Walker has heavily criticised the police and MPs for a historic failure to prioritise retail crime. He has also hit back at what he labelled “stupid” privacy rules that prevent stores from publicly sharing details or images of known criminals, with their customers and other stores.
Theft costs the frozen supermarket chain more than £20m each year. “That’s not £20m in profit, that’s £20m in hours that we could pay to our colleagues,” Walker told Channel 5.
Read more: Anti-theft measures hurt sales and annoy staff – are they really worth it?
The new incentive comes alongside a wave of more practical methods of boosting security in Iceland and Food Warehouse stores.
Iceland has been trialling new ‘steak dispensers’ in partnership with Harrison Retail, to protect high-value cuts of meat in 15 of its stores. Shrinkage has reduced by 44% in participating stores and Iceland plans to roll the solution out further.
In a move likely to be controversial for some shoppers, but welcomed by others, The Grocer revealed in June that Iceland has also begun trialling facial recognition cameras at two of its stores in the north, with plans to roll out further if it is successful.
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