What's Going On With Supermarket Chocolate Security In The UK?
Recently, UK shoppers noticed some plastic security boxes surrounding chocolate bars in their local supermarkets.
Sainsbury’s has said these anti-theft measures are being applied to “products which are regularly targeted” by thieves. Tesco has covered some of its chocolate products with a sliding plastic shield, which makes the bars harder to slip out.
This is true in my local Tesco, where a £2.10 Dairy Milk is kept behind a transparent barrier.
Why is chocolate being kept in security boxes in supermarkets?
The Association of Convenience Stores has suggested that chocolate is one of a few higher-value supermarket items targeted by thieves, and that chocolate theft is on the rise.
The organisation told Talking Retail that this could be part of a “wider, more organised criminality”.
Speaking to the BBC, the owner of Malcom’s convenience stores, Paul Cheema, said that he thinks some of the treats are being taken “to order”.
And Cambridgeshire police told the publication, “Chocolate is one of a number of high-value items thieves often target, along with products such as alcohol, meat and coffee.”
Why is chocolate so expensive?
The term “high-value” might seem a little extreme for a £2.10 bar.
But the cost of some chocolate really does seem to have gone up, both through actual price and “shrinkflation” (getting less of the product for the same amount of, or even more, money).
Last year, HuffPost UK spoke to Mark Owen, chief chocolatier at Pembrokeshire-based chocolate factory Wickedly Welsh Chocolate, about the rising cost of cocoa.
The chocolate expert said, “Cocoa prices shot up in 2024 to record highs after three poor harvests in a row for cocoa producers in the Ivory Coast and Ghana – the world’s two largest cocoa-producing nations”.
Higher costs had a knock-on effect through 2025.
Recently, though, the Ivory Coast has followed Ghana in planning to cut cocoa prices due to “unsold bags of cocoa beans piling up both inland and at the country’s ports”, Reuters reports.
Only time will tell how that affects us.
HuffPost UK has reached out to Tesco about their use of sliding shields on chocolate bars.