How grocers are getting creative in their battle against theft

Grocers’ war against shrink wages on with new moves by Kroger, Giant Food and Safeway.

Kroger confirmed in an email Tuesday that six of its Columbus, Ohio-area stores recently added safety measures, including receipt checks, in response to increased incidents of theft. Though in the early stages of implementation, Kroger has “received positive feedback from associates and customers,” Mark Bruce, a Kroger spokesperson, said in a statement.

Local news reports noted that shoppers are also no longer allowed to bring in suitcases, duffle bags or roller bags at those select stores and that the grocer has the right to search bags, Spectrum News 1 reported. Kroger did not respond to questions about this policy.

Giant Food is also looking to limit bag sizes to prevent theft, a spokesperson for the grocer confirmed via email on Tuesday. As of May 23, customers are prohibited from bringing suitcases, duffle bags or bags larger than 14 inches high, 14 inches wide, and 6 inches deep — not including open reusable shopping bags — when shopping in-store.

Sign in the window of a Washington, D.C., Giant Food store that reads "Attention: Bags measuring larger than 14” x 14” x 6" are prohibited." — Sign in the window of a Giant Food store in the Van Ness neighborhood of Washington, D.C., on May 25, 2024.

Catherine Douglas Moran/Grocery Dive

The policy is in place at select stores that are “experiencing high shrink to mitigate the unprecedented levels of product theft that have become unsustainable for our business,” according to the Giant’s emailed statement. The grocer did not specify which stores will enforce this new rule.

This latest initiative from Giant builds on previous efforts to reduce shrink. In September 2023, one of its Washington, D.C., locations began checking receipts as shoppers left the store due to “unprecedented levels of product theft.” The grocer also began enforcing basket size limits at self-checkout kiosks chainwide last year to minimize shrink.

Self-checkout has long been a culprit of shrink, and grocers have been struggling to find a balance between preventing theft and maintaining a smooth customer experience. Safeway is reportedly removing the self-checkout option altogether at several of its California stores, according to local news reports.

Select San Francisco Bay Area locations will get rid of self-checkout machines due to ongoing theft problems, KTVU reported earlier this week. The news outlet noted that the Safeway store on Pleasant Valley Road in Oakland, California, removed their machines earlier this month.

Safeway and Albertsons did not respond by press time about the removal of the self-checkout stations.

Since at least last summer, Safeway has been introducing receipt-scanning gates at self-checkout areas at select locations, including bringing the technology to several San Francisco stores followed by some stores in the Washington, D.C., area. Albertsons, Safeway’s parent company, said in a statement in February that the gates are part of “long-planned security improvements” aimed at preventing theft.