In the UK, as in France, theft is on the rise with sharp rises in food prices. In the London Borough of Walthamstow, a Co-Op store has decided to put fake coffee pots on the shelves. Customers must call the store staff if they want to buy something.
With an increase of 13% in one year, coffee is one of the most stolen products in stores, according to the Office for National Statistics, the British Insee. At the Co-Op store, the price of a kilo of instant coffee exceeds 50 pounds, or more than 60 euros, according to a photo posted on Twitter by a customer. This rate is approximately double that in France.
Co-Op is a brand created in 1850 and today has a network of 3,500 stores owned and operated by independent cooperatives that offer lower prices than other stores.
Coffee and chocolate, luxury products
And while prices for other food products have fallen by 15.4%, coffee remains expensive, becoming almost a luxury product, like chocolate, whose prices also remain high.
Rising energy prices are also affecting instant coffee, which requires a lengthy freeze-drying or spray-drying process.
The prices of these two consumer products even have a strong influence on the high inflation that, with non-food products, reached 15.7% in May, according to a Nielsen study for the BRC.
“Non-food inflation has risen, but consumers are getting deep discounts on shoes, books or entertainment products,” says Helen Dickinson.
France is not spared from theft. In 2022, the Ministry of the Interior indicated that these crimes increased by 14%. If a link between inflation and the increase in flights cannot be established directly, it necessarily weighs on the Family budget.
Source: BFM TV
