Confined Nutella and Meat in the Window: How Supermarkets Try to Stop Theft

Meat, cheese, beer, soda, deodorant, batteries, chocolate and even Nutella are increasingly the target of thefts in supermarkets, found Sheet. According to Abras (Brazilian Association of Supermarkets), thefts at points of sale totaled BRL 3.2 billion in 2021, a 15% increase over 2020 losses. In the same range, total sales by supermarkets grew by 10 %, to R$ 611 billion.

The products mentioned are the most frequent in theft, both in volume and in value, according to the association. “The theft rate indicates a worsening of the socioeconomic issue and, in a way, is out of our control”, says the vice president of Abras, Márcio Milan. In March, a report by Sheet revealed the increase in cases of fomelic crimes (motivated by hunger), such as food theft.

According to the Abras executive, most of the thefts (54%) come from the customers themselves, more than double that carried out by employees (25%). “About 20% of cases are carried out by suppliers, when a sealed box, for example, arrives at the store with a smaller amount of products than indicated.”

The association estimates that part of the thefts are for resale, due to the quantity taken from the stores.

But not all stolen goods are essential. Chama Supermercados, for example, registered an increase in the theft of Nutella, which only stopped when the chain, owner of 15 stores in the east of São Paulo, began to confine the product.

“We locked the pots on a shelf next to the cashier, which was only opened when the customer asked,” says Fábio Iwamoto, director of Chama Supermercados. “We also started to leave the meats vacuum-packed in the window, at the service counter, and not in the refrigerated shelves, as before.”

Meat has become the biggest target of thefts on the network – in part, carried out by the employees themselves, says Iwamoto. But deodorants, alcoholic beverages and chocolates have also disappeared from the shelves.

“Our theft rate increased from 1.87% to 1.96% last year,” says Iwamoto. “We changed some categories of place inside the store, to increase visibility”, he says. The chain has also invested in more anti-theft tags, more inventory checks and more in-store cameras. “But anti-theft labels don’t always work or are appropriate for all packages. We need to be more attentive,” he says.

Expired product helped supermarket lose BRL 11.4 billion in 2021

Thefts are part of the supermarket loss index, which in 2021 reached 1.87% of total sales, according to Abras, which represents a loss of R$ 11.4 billion. This number ranges from expired and damaged products to administrative errors, such as failures in stock counting, including theft.

To increase control over the level of losses, supermarkets do not intend to increase the hiring of guards or store inspectors – which would make the operation even more expensive. “It is easier for us to increase control over operational breakdown, which involves changing the shelf life of industrialized products”, says Milan.

Since the middle of last year, Abras has been discussing with the Ministry of Agriculture, Anvisa (National Agency for Sanitary Surveillance) and Senacon (National Consumer Secretariat) to change the current rule, in which the expiration date is printed on the product. Instead, consumers would find on the industrialized product the warning “preferably consume before” – the equivalent of the “best before”, adopted in Europe, says Milan.

Supermarkets could promote out-of-date products, a practice already adopted by peripheral markets, the so-called “vencidinhos” – which sell products close to expiration and, therefore, charge less than the large chains.

Detail: today, if a consumer finds an expired product at the point of sale, he has the right to take the same product within its validity period for free, or another similar product, according to an agreement signed in October 2011 between Procon-SP and Apas ( Associação Paulista de Supermercados), which was replicated in other states.

With the change in the rule, this obligation would no longer exist.

In addition, supermarkets also defend, together with the Ministry of Economy, an expansion of the Income Tax deduction to retailers who donate damaged food or close to maturity. Under current legislation, this index is at 2% and they ask that it be readjusted to 5%. “This would make the networks double the amount of food donated,” says Milan.