Confessions of a shoplifter: As food costs soar and self-checkouts multiply, more people are stealing — and they’re not sorry

Tony has been shoplifting most of his food and he feels no guilt.

I shoplift 80 per cent of my groceries," the Toronto-based 32-year-old said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Since moving to the city from North York two years ago, his monthly pay of $2,000 isn't enough to live on amid rising costs, he said, and he's struggling to pay the bills.

Shoplifting - theft under $5,000 - is a criminal offence in Canada. But that hasn't deterred Tony, who feels that stealing from big supermarket chains to survive should not be a crime.

I don't have any kind of moral quandary with stealing food. If the prices were fair ... I'd pay. But I would not be able to survive in my situation without shoplifting."

Shoplifting has surged across the country in recent months thanks to rising prices and the introduction of more self-checkout machines, retailers and industry experts say. Ironically, retailers' increasing reliance on self-checkouts to slash labour costs and fill staffing gaps is now making it easier for shoppers to steal - and it's costing stores billions.

The Star spoke to several Toronto residents for this story who say they're shoplifting more as food prices increase and feel justified in doing so, but only Tony would allow his comments to be published.

Canada's big supermarket chains don't seem to be suffering - several have recently posted record profits - but some retailers are getting concerned that shoplifting will only increase as prices increase, especially if a recession hits in the coming months as many economists fear.

Theft tends to spike during economic downturns. When prices go up, we see shoplifting surge," said Michelle Wasylyshen, a spokesperson for the Retail Council of Canada. Data from 2019 shows that retail crime in Canada accounts for about $5 billion a year in losses," Wasylyshen said. It's likely more than that this year," she said, adding it's difficult to collect exact numbers due to COVID-19 closures.

As prices increase, retailers like Walmart Canada say they've seen an unprecedented uptick in shoplifting incidents. The big-box retailer said in an email that retail crime, including theft and arson, is higher than it historically has been" at stores across the country.

Metro declined to comment while Loblaw and Sobeys did not respond to the Star's questions about shoplifting incidents.

Shoplifting on the rise

Shoplifting is not a new phenomenon.

While data on shoplifting incidents for 2022 is not yet available, shoplifting was on the rise well before the pandemic hit. Before 2020, rates of shoplifting had been increasing for six years, with larger increases in 2018 and 2019, according to data from Statistics Canada. From 2010 to 2019, the rate of shoplifting incidents jumped 39 per cent.

But as businesses were forced shut and Canadians stayed indoors due to nationwide lockdowns beginning in March 2020, shoplifting incidents plummeted, declining by 35 per cent during the first pandemic year, and then rising three per cent when stores reopened to in-person shopping in 2021.

To contend with labour shortages as retail workers fell ill with COVID-19 or left their jobs due to conditions that put them at risk of contracting the virus, retailers responded with a greater reliance on self-checkout kiosks to reduce labour costs and fill the gaps.

The popularity of self-checkouts increased when the pandemic began as shoppers wanted to interact with less people due to the COVID-19 virus, said Sylvain Charlebois, head of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University. Workers were also getting sick and self-checkouts were a good solution to fill staffing gaps.

Although self-checkouts became mainstream only relatively recently, data from a May 2021 survey by the Agri-Food Analytics Lab showed that a slight majority of consumers were already preferring the machines over cashiers when exiting the grocery store.

Meanwhile, inflation began to hit consumers hard in the spring of 2022, driving up the cost of living for Canadians and making food and necessities less affordable.

Statistics Canada data released in May showed grocery prices went up 9.7 per cent between April 2021 and April 2022 - the steepest increase since 1981. As necessities became less affordable, more people started looking for food elsewhere. There were nearly 1.5 million food bank visits across the country in March 2022, according to Food Banks Canada, the highest number of visits yet. Allan Gardens Food Bank in Toronto has seen an almost 50 per cent increase in individuals served in just a year.

And prices are only expected to increase. Estimates for 2023 food costs show that prices will be even higher than they were last year, with an increase of approximately five to seven per cent mostly on staples including vegetables, dairy and meat, according to Canada's Food Price Report 2023.

Taking advantage'

Consumers grappling with soaring food prices are directing their ire at supermarkets, with accusations they are profiting from the worst inflation Canadians have seen in decades. And in fact, the country's big three supermarket chains - Loblaw, Empire (Sobeys) and Metro - have seen their profits rise as food prices have climbed, according to a recent Star analysis.

In response, some shoplifters are justifying their actions as retaliation for what they see as corporate greed or simply as a means to obtain necessities they can no longer afford.

Of the several self-admitted shoplifters who spoke with the Star for this story, all cited similar reasons for why they stole, including that they were unable to afford basic items and that they didn't feel it was considered theft when prices are so high.

Tony moved to Toronto for work from North York two years ago and found he couldn't keep up with expenses as prices continued to increase post-COVID while his income didn't.

Given the pay of my job and the cost of living, rent, utilities, something had to give. I had to find somewhere to cut costs," Tony said.

Self-checkouts, said Tony, presented such an opportunity.

The easiest way to save money for myself and afford other expenses was to take advantage of the self-checkouts at big-box grocery stores and bag products that I hadn't paid for," Tony said.

Other shoplifters said self-checkouts allow them to discretely replace an expensive product's scanning code with one for a cheaper item.

If an item I feel is unfairly priced, I don't have any qualms not paying for it," Tony said, adding that these are staple items like eggs, milk, deodorant, bread, toothpaste. These are not luxury items."

Tony stressed that if he shops at a small business or independent grocer he'll pay, but if I'm going to Loblaws or Shoppers Drug Mart, owned by one of the wealthiest families in Canada, and they're asking $10 for a jar of peanut butter, I see no issue with just putting it in my bag and walking out."

Tony said he often thinks about his experience working at a supermarket when he was younger and how employees were tasked with throwing out garbage bags and boxes full of produce, baked goods and boxed goods that had gone past their expiration date."

These supermarkets throw away massive quantities of food in the garbage but their concern is people walking out with food that they're going to take home and eat."

The risks for retailers

Retailers' growing reliance on self-checkouts to cut labour costs and compensate for worker shortages appears to be correlated with the increase in shoplifting.

Retail Council of Canada's Wasylyshen confirmed that retailers with self-checkouts report higher shrinkage rates after introducing self-checkout."

Shrinkage is when a store has fewer items in stock than appear in its inventory system. Wasylyshen said it's difficult to determine how much of it is due to shoplifting, as shrinkage can also be due to administrative errors or spoiled food and products.

Retailers don't necessarily track the difference and so at the end of the day, if a product is unaccounted for, it could be for a number of reasons, of which theft is one," Wasylyshen said.

Less staff also means less surveillance on store floors.

There's not enough labour to make sure that you always have eyes on a person," Wasylyshen said. If you don't have enough people working in a store and on the floor, you can't do something as simple as reading a customer when they come in, or making eye contact with them to let them know you're there."

In the U.S., Walmart Inc. CEO Doug McMillon warned in December that the retailer will close stores if theft does not slow. Dozens of employees blamed self-checkouts for the increasing thefts and urged the retailer to cut back its reliance on the machines.

Walmart Canada declined to answer questions about how much the retailer has seen shoplifting increase in recent years and whether self-checkouts pose additional risks of theft.

Dalhousie's Charlebois agreed there is a correlation between increasing incidents of shoplifting and the ease with which self-checkouts might allow consumers to steal. Self-checkouts can also be vulnerable to errors, whether intentional or not," Charlebois said.

If someone has three items and they just scan two of them, is that on purpose? It's hard for grocers to really measure the intent on site," he said. How can you demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that someone actually entered the wrong code on purpose?"

Paying the cost

Retailers and advocates are at odds as to why both shoplifting and prices are climbing. On the one hand, retailers warn that consumers will have to pay for the price of increasing theft.

To offset that loss, businesses sometimes have no other option but to continue to increase the prices," Wasylyshen said.

But advocates say there is little evidence to support the argument that shoplifting is having a sizable impact on retailer profits.

The supermarket chains are reporting some of their highest profits in living memory," said Daniel Bender, food historian and director of the Culinaria Research Centre at University of Toronto Scarborough. The real issue is the unravelling of supply chains and supermarket profits. (The supermarkets) are doing just fine," Bender said.

Determining how much inventory goes missing due to theft is also difficult to establish. Retail industry analyst Lisa Hutcheson said shrinkage typically accounts for one to two per cent of sales, and this can be a result of several reasons, including administrative errors.

For retailers, the solution is to increase security and co-ordination with authorities to prevent theft.

We've been working across the country for greater collaboration with police, justice and government. We're also helping retailers with loss prevention strategies," Wasylyshen said.

Walmart Canada uses a variety of measures to manage and prevent theft," Walmart Canada said in an email. We're increasing our investment in these measures, including enhancing our asset protection technologies and procedures in-store."

But food security advocates say government and policies need to address why a growing number of people might be driven to steal in the first place. At last count, 15.9 per cent of households in Canada's 10 provinces were food insecure in 2021, which amounts to 5.8 million Canadians, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada's Canadian Income Survey.

Food insecurity is only expected to grow with increasing prices, said Tim Li, a research program co-ordinator at PROOF at the University of Toronto, which studies food insecurity in Canada.

Food insecurity is just a reflection of a bigger issue of material deprivation and poverty. I think what we really need to be looking at first and foremost is addressing the income inadequacy," Li said.

That's why licensed paralegal Frank Alfano, who works with the firm We Defend You, says he is trying to approach the issue of shoplifting with empathy for those who are struggling.

In recent weeks, an advertisement saying We defend anyone arrested for shoplifting food from the grocery stores for free," posted on Instagram by a the Richmond Hill-based legal services firm, has gained a lot of attention.

Alfano said he's seen an increase in calls asking for legal help on shoplifting cases since news of the advertisement spread online. He stressed that while he does not condone crime, the issue might not be so black and white.

Most of the shoplifting cases we get are people who probably would never have done anything wrong in their life but they're on their worst day," Alfano said.

They made a bad decision. They did something out of desperation and necessity."

Ghada Alsharif is a Toronto-based business reporter for the Star. Reach Ghada via email: galsharif@torstar.ca