The boss of supermarket chain Iceland has issued a warning over a "worrying" new trend seen across its stores. It comes after food prices and the cost of products have risen rapidly over the past few weeks.
Iceland's managing director Richard Walker appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday (July 12) to discuss the cost of living crisis. The boss told presenters Susanna Reid and Ed Balls about the trend seen in its supermarkets.
The Echo reports that Mr Walker told the presenters soaring food costs have led to a rise in shoplifting and aggressive incidents across Iceland's stores. He added: "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."
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Susanna was taken aback by the worrying rise and quizzed Mr 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 store 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. @bestchester276 said: "I really like the boss of Iceland and he isn’t afraid to come and answer questions."
One person commented: "I like the boss of iceland... at least he's trying.." Another added: "Very impressed by the boss of Iceland."
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