Securing the grocery aisles
Whether its mis-scanning at the self-check-out, organized theft rings or cybercrime, loss prevention is becoming harder and harder for grocers to tackle. According to Retail Council of Canada (RCC), retailers reported an average shrink of 1.5% or $9 billion in 2024, nearly double what it was five years prior. In fact, RCC says losses for Canadian retailers are now in line with shrink levels in the United States.
Fuelled by opportunity, today’s shoplifters are also getting increasingly sophisticated, operating in co-ordinated groups and finding new vulnerabilities to exploit in grocery, be it in-store or online.
But as theft evolves and losses escalate, so do the strategies to stop them. Across the country, grocers are looking to smarter store design, new technologies, better staff training and closer collaboration with police and government to keep loss—and risks—in check.
The greatest pain points for grocers
With a greater shift towards automation, grocers and retailers across the board cite self-checkout as a top contributor to shrink. Retail loss-prevention expert Stephen O’Keefe, president of Bottom Line Matters based in Georgetown, Ont., says self-checkouts are a prime example of technology implemented to improve the customer experience and save labour costs, with security as an afterthought. “I did a study on a 20-store project that showed that self-checkout added 36% more shrink compared to stores without it,” he says. “It’s really about opportunity and the perception that you’ll get away with it.”
Even as technology around self-checkout security improves, O’Keefe says grocers still need to figure out their trade-off between labour cost-savings and increased loss, and if “the math makes sense.”
READ: Grocery shoplifting on the rise in Canada amid inflation, industry insiders say
On top of individual theft, organized crime is another factor contributing to significant shrink for Canadian grocers, especially in major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. Industry experts say the combination of demand for lower-priced items and the sheer access to large volumes of perishable and non-perishable foods in a grocery store make it an enticing target. Labour issues in grocery are further compounding the problem with fewer employees to monitor grocery aisles and report incidences.
“We’re not talking about posting a wheel of cheese on [Facebook] Marketplace and having somebody buy it, but a very organized group of people who allow for the supply chain of stolen goods to get to market—and everybody along the way is making money,” explains O’Keefe.
Sylvain Charlebois, a professor in food distribution policy and senior director at the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, says “middle-mile” theft (where trucks are hijacked and products stolen as they move from warehouse to store), is a particularly costly problem that is difficult to police. “There is some potential with driverless trucks to reduce risks in the middle mile, but it’s still early days,” he says.
As retailers respond to threats by adding more locked or glass-secured goods, body cameras or security guards, Charlebois says these actions carry the risk of turning off honest customers. “Canadians aren’t as used to visible security measures like Americans … so grocers have to be careful,” he explains, adding that if you make shoppers feel watched or distrusted, it changes the way they shop.
When large grocery chains receive backlash from the public for piloting new security measures such as body cameras on cashiers (as Loblaw and Walmart have adopted) or self-checkout barriers, he says, it can make other grocers hesitant to explore these options. “I think Loblaw’s anti-theft effort is often used as a weather balloon for the entire sector,” explains Charlebois.
READ: The battle against retail theft and loss
Concerns around e-commerce crime and cyberattacks are another security concern plaguing grocers today. This past June, a highly publicized cyberattack on major food distributor United National Foods Inc. (UNFI) left Whole Foods Market and other grocers with empty shelves, putting food supplies at risk. Last year, Western Canada’s Federated Co-Operatives experienced a ransomware attack that impacted computer systems at hundreds of its grocery stores and gas bars for weeks. “While cybersecurity is becoming more of a priority for grocers, for sure, … the level of concern is uneven across the supply chain and that concerns me,” says Charlebois, noting that in his experience, manufacturers aren’t considering cybersecurity as big an issue as it should be.
What’s effective in preventing loss?
Industry experts say assessing risk in your organization is the first key step. ECR Retail Loss is a Europe-based global think tank of retailers, suppliers and academics working together to tackle loss issues. It offers a free benchmarking tool for retailers on its website, ecrloss.com, developed by one of its academic researchers Emmeline Taylor—a professor of criminology at City St George’s, University of London—to help evaluate how secure their operations really are. The tool explores seven key principles—data, people, control, offenders, guarding, monitoring and joining forces—to generate a detailed security profile, and retailers report finding the process quite “eye-opening.”
Colin Peacock, the think tank’s group strategic co-ordinator, says reducing shrink takes a company-wide approach that starts with good data and prioritization. “First of all, you try and gather as much data as you can to figure out what stores are riskier than others,” he says. The data can help guide grocers on where to focus their efforts, from adjusting store hours and assortment in higher-risk locations to investing in training and empowering staff.
“Self-checkout hosts are one of the most important, but also one of the toughest jobs in the store,” Peacock notes. “Investing in the right people and training them to de-escalate tension and manage abusive customers is crucial.” He also highlights how new scan-avoidance and product-recognition technologies can help reduce loss, with some retailers seeing up to an 11% improvement in shrink so far and even better technology coming.
READ: As tech improves, shoppers more likely to choose self-checkout at grocery stores
Current data shows grocers are certainly recognizing the importance of technology in loss prevention. According to 2025 research from the Food Industry Association (FMI)’s Asset Protection in Food Retail report, nearly half of retailers (48%) are now using data analytics for loss prevention, up from 37% the year before. Artificial intelligence is also gaining ground, with usage doubling from 10% to 22%.
Doug Baker, FMI’s vice-president of industry relations, says these tools help retailers spot patterns and intervene faster. Looking ahead, he expects electronic labels and tags to see continued growth, along with technology that supports product traceability and inventory planning. “It’s clear that the industry is leaning into smart, scalable solutions to stay ahead of shrink and operational risk,” he says, adding that fraud detection tools are also on the rise.
Peacock adds that effective loss prevention depends on leadership and culture as much as tools or tech. “Thinking about shrink as a choice is important—it’s a function of the choices you make from the CEO down,” he says, citing self-checkouts as a prime example. “All the research suggests that their adoption will increase loss; however, there is a significant reduction in labour with their adoption. Across the world, retailers see this trade-off and choose higher losses.”
Longer-term efforts to address loss issues
In the meantime, RCC is focusing on the bigger picture in reducing retail crime by working with law enforcement and government. Through its national Retail Blitz initiative, which runs four times a year in partnership with police services across the country, the organization helps co-ordinate targeted enforcement efforts that track arrests, repeat offenders and violent incidents (see sidebar). The program has resulted in more collaboration between grocers and law enforcement with some communities beginning to see results.
Rui Rodrigues, executive advisor, loss prevention and risk management at RCC, points to cities such as Winnipeg that are seeing a decrease in crime after years of double-digit increases. “This gives us the win to be able to say what we’re doing is working,” he says.
Beyond enforcement, in its latest report, RCC is also advocating for legal and policy reform to address what it calls a “revolving door” of repeat offenders, by calling on governments to strengthen bail reform and sentencing guidelines under the Criminal Code for chronic retail offenders. It’s also urging retailers of all sizes to report even minor thefts, so police can better allocate resources and build intelligence on organized networks. Without that information, Rodrigues says it’s much harder to prevent repeat offenders and protect both staff and customers.
He points to international safety models, such as those used in New Zealand, where there is a single national police service that allows for more efficient collaboration across regions. “While Canada’s multiple jurisdictions make that model challenging to replicate, it’s an example of how centralized co-ordination can improve results,” says Rodrigues.
Despite escalating retail crime, some encouraging news is the vast majority (93%) of grocery shoppers still feel their primary store is a safe place to shop and 91% appreciate the safety measures retailers have put in place, shows research from FMI. “That tells us grocers are implementing security in ways that are visible but not intrusive, and they’re doing it with clear communication and respectful engagement,” says Baker. “It’s not just about having cameras or gates; it’s about creating an environment where customers feel protected without feeling policed.”
Where theft turns threatening
As grocery theft surges across the country, so does violence against grocery employees. What was once the occasional heated confrontation between a customer and staff member has escalated into legitimate safety concerns causing grocers to rethink store design, training and technology to safeguard their staff. Retail Council of Canada’s 2024 report, Retail Crime in Canada: The Hidden Crisis Impacting Business, Communities and Safety, provides some hard facts around what is quickly becoming a safety crisis in Canada. Survey findings showed more than 76% of retailers reporting increased violence during thefts, and last year alone there were 121 weapons seized in RCC-led retail blitz operations with police and retailers across the country. Almost 18% of those arrested were repeat offenders, too.
RCC’s Rui Rodrigues says it’s no longer just the volume of theft that is worrying retailers, but the violence often surrounding it. “Now, there are people coming in with machetes and knives and there are incidences of guns being utilized, which is concerning from a safety perspective for employees and consumers,” he says.
Along with deploying security guards on-site, large chains in Canada such as Walmart and Loblaw are piloting body- worn cameras on employees to help reduce violent incidents in-store. This past March, Loblaw announced plans to extend its bodycam pilot—first initiated in Alberta and Saskatchewan—to select stores in Ontario, British Columbia and Manitoba.
READ: How grocers can safeguard against shrink
Loblaw noted the cameras will only be worn by trained asset protection representatives, third-part security, store manage- ment and additional team members where applicable. They will also be activated only when colleagues are faced with a situation where there is a risk of escalation and fear for one’s safety and/or the safety of others.
Overall, Rodrigues says retailers have reported significant de-escalation of threatening behaviour from consumers when they see themselves on a camera screen. “They either stop their behaviour or leave because they know they’re on camera,” he says, noting it is essential that people wearing the body cameras are trained in how to de-escalate risky situations.
Meanwhile, retailers in Australia are redesigning their entire stores and front-line practices to help reduce the risk of violence to staff. This means ensuring stores are well-lit, providing dedicated staff-only access routes that allow employees to move safely around the premises without dealing with customers, along with “safe” lockable back rooms and till cages in high-risk locations. Checkout barriers and signage setting clear behavioural expectations are also in use. Even small, well-placed interventions in-store are helping reduce confrontation and give staff a better sense of control and overall safety.
To curb grocery store violence going forward, Rodrigues advises grocers to report all incidents to police. “I think there is a misconception that there is no point in sub- mitting a police report if there is no arrest or charge being laid, but it’s so important for intelligence gathering … and helping police know where they need to deploy officers,” he explains.
For smaller grocers with less budget for additional security measures, Rodrigues also advises asking local police for help on assessing their risk areas in and around stores and advice on how best to curb them. “All the police agencies I know of will come out and do this when they have time—and even talk to employees on site about safety measures,” he says.
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s November 2025 issue.
