Shoplifting has become so rife that The Co-operative has started putting empty coffee jars on display on shelves.
A convenience shop in Walthamstow, north London, now marks jars of Kenco and Nescafe instant coffee with labels instead.
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They say: “This product is a dummy. Not for sale. Please ask a member of staff for help”.
It came after the price of a 200g of Kenco Smooth rose to £10.50 while a jar of Nescafe Gold Blend was also restricted.
A Co-op insider said that the move was not a national policy but the decision had been taken in a number of stores on frequently stolen items.
Laura Estah said on Twitter: “The cost of living is reaching new heights. My local Co-op is now a grocery show room.”
It comes as Marks & Spencer has started displaying just a single steak on its food shelves, asking customers to contact staff if they would like to buy one.
A spokesman for M&S said: “Like many other retailers , in certain stores where there have been a high incidence of theft, we will sometimes limit the number of higher value items that are on display to deter shoplifters and keep our colleagues and customers safe.
“If a customer wants more of a particular item than is displayed on the shelf, our colleagues are always on hand.”
As food prices have rocketed and shoplifting has increased supermarkets have started using security tags more frequently, including packs of butter and blocks of cheese.
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Before the cost-of-living crisis security tags were typically used on bottles of spirits and higher-value items such as razors.
The British Retail Consortium’s latest figure shows there are 8million incidents of theft a year and 867 violent or abusive incidents every day.
Retail sources said that while rocketing food inflation meant some people were facing desperate times, the biggest driver of shoplifting was down to an unwillingness to tackle organised crime.
“The underlying causes of such crime need to be addressed including the grooming of underage children to undertake the theft and links to organised crime”, the British Retail Consortium said in its recent Crime Survey report.
