A supermarket boss has appeared on television recently to issue a warning to shoppers over a "worrying" trend that he has seen in his supermarkets amidst the cost of living crisis.
Richard Walker, Managing Director of Iceland, made an appearance on Good Morning Britain this week where he urged shoppers not to begin shoplifting or become aggressive in stores. The frozen supermarket's boss has said that a rise in shoplifting and aggressive incidents have been triggered by rising prices of food, reports The Mirror.
His warning comes as millions of households across Scotland are struggling to make ends meet after inflation reached 9.1% - a 40-year high. Grocery inflation has also reached 8.3% over the past four weeks to June 12 - the highest level since April 2009.
Walker said: "I get the serious incident reports every week of aggressive behaviour that goes on in our stores and unfortunately it is going up because people are struggling."
One of the hosts was taken aback by the worrying rise and quizzed Walker on how supermarket staff deal with shoplifters.
He explained: "We're not the police and we do have security guards in some stores, but they will give a written warning or ban the customer from the story if they get aggressive."
Iceland has launched a series of initiatives to help ease the cost-of-living crisis for shoppers. The supermarket chain reduced the threshold for free delivery and has frozen the price of hundreds of £1 value lines.
Viewers following the show on Twitter praised the supermarket chain for taking action to help shoppers. Jasmine commented: "I like the boss of Iceland...at least he's trying."
David added: "Very impressed by the boss of Iceland."
Walker's warning comes after the soaring costs of Lurpak butter has forced some supermarkets to place security tags on popular items such as butter and cheese.
The Daily Record recently reported that Aldi had resorted to putting security tags on blocks of cheese. Meanwhile, supermarket chain Asda was found to have put security tags on packs of Lurpak to deter shoplifters.
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