A supermarket giant says crime has surged in its North Island stores, with more than a thousand incidents a month. 

Foodstuffs today released imagery it said showed brazen thefts and an attack on a security guard among crimes committed in recent months. 

In one case, it said a man armed with a screwdriver tried stealing nine legs of lamb and in another, shoplifters attacked a security guard after being confronted. 

Foodstuffs said repeat offenders were involved in more than a third of all incidents across the North Island’s New World, Pak’nSave and Four Square stores. 

The company said it recorded 3900 separate incidents from the start of May to end of July this year, a 59 per cent increase year-on-year, and up almost 19 per cent on the previous quarter. 

“Serious incidents reported by Foodstuffs stores such as assault, robbery and burglary have more than doubled year on year, and are already up 13 per cent on the last quarter of this year,” the company said this morning. 

Foodstuffs says crime has surged at North Island stores and here an alleged shoplifter is seen assaulting a security guard. Photo / Supplied 

“Of particular concern is the increasing number of assaults in store, with 54 separate attacks, mostly on frontline staff, in the last three months alone,” the company added. 

“Shoplifting accounted for three-quarters of all offences, and was up 78 per cent year-on-year.” 

“Our frontline staff are continuing to be confronted by the worst of it,” Foodstuffs North Island chief executive Chris Quin said. 

“We’re now seeing on average four assaults every week, with five of our people having to take time off work after being physically injured by this violent behaviour. It’s utterly unacceptable.” 

Quin said in hundreds of cases, trespass notices were breached by alleged repeat offenders. 

“We know many offenders are targeting premium cuts of meat, health and beauty products and alcohol and we know the biggest problem is repeat offending.” 

Trespass notices were not stopping repeat offenders, and some thieves became aggressive when confronted, Quin said. 

“The technology already exists to address what is an increasingly dangerous and costly problem. We can’t keep hoping the epidemic of retail crime will cure itself.” 

He said new security systems such as facial recognition could potentially help identify repeat offenders on entry and prevent harm before it happened. 

“We are working carefully to develop a framework to trial this technology in some stores. The trial will assess whether we can proactively reduce recidivist offending and help keep our teams and customers safe, while also protecting our customers’ privacy.” 

The Foodstuffs comments this morning followed a Herald report last weekend revealing Countdown was examining the use of extra security measures for staff at its supermarkets. 

Countdown reported a big increase in crime and said it was planning to roll out more security measures including push-to-talk radios and use of CCTV, and even changing some store designs. 

Countdown was also installing new camera technology at self-checkouts aimed at the mis-scanning of products. That technology is live in four stores with another 16 to get the technology by the end of this year. 

Quin said he recently met with Government ministers, opposition MPs, public servants, and even the Police Commissioner to discuss retail crime. 

“Retail crime affects the lives of our team members and impacts every community across the North Island,” he said. 

“Ultimately, everyone pays more while offenders get a free ride.” 

Quin said the police Retail Investigation Unit had been targeting the worst recidivist offenders over the past eighteen months but he said it only had limited resources and needed more support. 

“This is a complex problem that requires considered and bold thinking. I’ve had some good discussions, but we need to work harder and smarter so we’re moving this forward beyond just conversations.” 

The Foodstuffs data was logged with retail crime software platform Auror. 

John Weekes is online business editor. He has covered courts, politics, crime and consumer affairs. He rejoined the Herald in 2020, previously working at Stuff and News Corp Australia.