Rising Inflation, Staff Shortages, Surging Food Theft

"There is a correlation between the two, absolutely. Theft is an ongoing issue. But the intensity actually does increase when food prices go up."

"If you see both food prices go up and ... the economy slows down, jointly that is when you basically see even more stuff [thefts]."

"Theft will cost everyone more because someone has to pay for that [stolen] food. You and I pay for theft."

Sylvain Charlebois, senior director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, Halifax

"Retail crime, including theft and arson, is sadly  higher than it historically has been at Walmart Canada and across the entire retail industry."

"This is very concerning for our business, our associates, our customers and the industry."

Felicia Fefer, corporate affairs manager, Walmart Canada

"There is great concern among Canadian businesses right now about crime, and crime in Canadian workplaces."

"Shoplifting is definitely being felt more, especially as we've come out of lockdown and restrictions."

"If you have fewer people on the storefront, if you know if you have one person deep in the business at the back cash desk, it does lead to the business being a bit of a robbery target."

"Fewer people on the floor ... makes shoplifters feel a little less intimidated to go in and take something [Employees and customers alike feel more] intimidated and nervous [walking into the stores]."

Dan Kelly, president, Canadian Federation of Independent Business

“Thefts from grocery stores appear to be on the rise. With food inflation these days, that was to be expected; and the worst is yet to come. “

According to food industry insiders incidents of shoplifting from food stores has surged to unprecedented levels across the country, coinciding with inflation and shortages of labour, considered major factors leading to an increase in theft. Canadian retailers are recognizing this uptick with great concern. This, at a time that rising food prices helps cushion the bottom lines for food retailers. All of whom have posted record profits, at the same time.

Back in October groceries were priced 11 percent higher than the year before; rising food prices continue and are not expected to stabilize in the near future. For a family of four in Canada, the total cost of groceries is expected to be $1,065 more than the year before, reflecting the conclusion of the most recent edition of Canada's Food Price Report.

In Canada, grocery theft is increasing as a result of rising prices.  NDTV

 

Food price inflation is recognized as one of the major drivers inspiring greater numbers of people to begin stealing food, according to Sylvain Charlebois, senior direct of Dalhousie University's Agri-Food Analytics Lab. Meat and dairy products, he observes, appear to be the top two food items that tend to be stolen. The possibility as some economists suggest, that the economy will slow next year, will only exacerbate the problem, he fears.

Inflation, advises Mr. Charlebois, and grocery theft, affect one another; when prices go up, shoplifting tends to surge. To offset the loss, businesses are faced with little option but to further increase prices. Walnart, on the other hand, according to its corporate affairs manager, is implementing measures to prevent and reduce theft with the intention of keeping prices low and to ensure its employees and customers are safe.

The issue of labour shortages -- too many jobs going unfilled because too many people are no longer feeling compelled to join the active workplace -- is also a contributing factor in the shoplifting epidemic, according to the president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Some grocers are struggling to recruit new staff. When a business cannot hire enough employees to perform physical monitoring, this places businesses in a vulnerable position.

This has resulted in retail stores turning to hiring security guards which may include off-duty police officers. Other steps such as retrofitting to ensure clearer sightlines to aid in monitoring events within the business are other steps being taken with the use of more electronic monitoring technology and limiting the number of people in the store in hopes of providing one-to-one service.

"[The council isn't collecting data on whether there is any connection between inflation and shoplifting, but] theft tends to spike during economic downturns." 

"We also know that break-ins, armed robberies, and physical and especially violent incidents are higher than they have been in previous years."

Michelle Wasylyshen, spokesperson, Retail Council of Canada

Produce vegetables are displayed for sale at a grocery store in Aylmer, Que. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

COVID Panic over Cushy Tushy Paper

"Found some toilet paper in the wild! Driving it home now."
"This is as close as I'll ever come to knowing what it feels like driving one of those armoured money trucks."
A bit of Twitter fun from @TransForYang

Rolling, rolling, rolling: A Procter & Gamble manufacturing facility. David Salpeter

Things have been so tense in North America with wild panic setting in over the possibility of consumers unable to access toilet paper that the Twitterer might even have experienced how nasty it can be when an armoured truck is held up, its driver held at attention with the barrel of a revolver held to his head while a voice emanating from a face mask snaps at  him, report this to the authorities and I'll neutralize you, while making off with his cushy tushy paper.

Supermarkets in North America and no doubt elsewhere sported shelves empty of cleaning products, refrigerated units void of meat, shortages of eggs, but it was the sight of empty shelves where shoppers knew toilet paper should be stacked that really set civilization aflame. Consumers of toilet paper had a mission: find out where the toilet paper is being shipped to, get there first, and grab it -- all of it -- before anyone else can get their greasy hands on it!

Hmm, toilet paper. Those big double, soft, three-ply, embossed stacked rolls take up a whole lot of room. So supermarkets, unwilling to take up precious stock room with it, order and shelve only what is estimated to sell during a certain period of time. How would they know there'd be a run on toilet paper? It's as though people had become so irritably nervous over the very thought of the threat hanging over the world at a time of SARS-CoV-2, their bowels continually ran.

Meticulously cleaning up the ensuring - er - mess, takes lots, scads of toilet paper. Evidently. Consumer products data tracker NCSolutions issued updates on the pathetic lack of toilet paper and data for re-stocking shelves. 73 percent of U.S.grocery stores came up perilously slack on re-stocking sending consumers into a blizzard of failing confidence in the market. One mightn't think that a 27 percent increase in demand over the same period a year earlier would produce such terror.

Consisting on average of 2.6 people, U.S. households use roughly 409 rolls annually. This, according to the producer of Angel Soft and Quilted Northern, Georgia Pacific. Remaining home 24/7 under lockdown would boost that average usage by 40 percent -- imagine! Increasing the need to purchase said rolls to the rate of 9 doubles in about two weeks.

Toilet paper was in the exalted company of other shortage items such as pasta, soap, flour, yeast and canned goods, all of which swiftly vacated store shelves and became unavailable to other citizens equally entitled to share the riches of civilized living but hadn't had the speedy wit to begin stockpiling as their more savvy-selfish neighbours had.

It's a clear bet that Procter & Gamble, Kimberly-Clark and Georgia Pacific never in their wildest industrial dreams imagined that they might ever represent the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in popular appeal during a global pandemic.

A shelf at a Kroger-owned Ralphs store is stocked with toilet paper in Los Angeles, California, U.S., April 25, 2020. Picture taken April 25, 2020. REUTERS/Lisa Baertlein

Adapting to COVID Food Preparation Options ... and After

"Whenever there are times of trouble there's innovation or ways of getting better from it. A lot of the discussion has been, 'How do we improve the food system?' ... but there are businesses doing well out of this and I think in the future things could get better."
"We've had a massive increase of unemployment in Canada. People have lost wages and obviously can only eat what they can afford."
"I think frugality will change once the economy opens up -- once people can get back to their jobs, once they've got money, once they've got the ability to spend it."
"The convenience angle -- 'I'm busy. I have to work long hours. I don't have time to cook for the kids' -- that will come back."
"Meal kits maximize time and are convenient, and the product offering is reasonably well-priced. [But they're] not the cheapest way of feeding a family of two, three, four people. So you're paying for that convenience."
"When we move to a time period where people can get out and work like they did before, they'll start becoming more time-poor. Because of that, they'll need that convenience aspect more than they have during COVID. And that's when we'll see restaurants becoming more prevalent again, and meal kits fit nicely in there as well."
"When people start getting time-poor, they have less time to cook for themselves."
Simon Somogyi, Arrell Chair, Business of Food, University of Guelph

One-third of people have been baking more than usual during the pandemic, and 20 per cent expect to keep it up. Getty Images

Consumers now know what food scarcity looks like. They saw its image in bare shelves within supermarkets, and long lines of would-be food shoppers awaiting entrance to a grocery store that would admit new shoppers only when the current ones departed to ensure sufficient distancing space could be respected. When they did have the opportunity to enter, they looked for shelf staples with long stable lives, since who knew how long scarcity would go on for, much less the new state of existence in the universal lockdown. So tins of fish and dried beans were high on their list -- if they could find them.

There was a sea change in how people ate, with restaurants closed and no longer could they plan to spend 40 percent of their food budget eating out and slipping into convenience stores to pick up extras. They experienced a frightening shortage of eggs, flour, meat, dairy products, even yeast as everyone, from seasoned to novice class, began to panic and bake their own bread. People became socially isolated by dictate and all their meals thenceforth were taken at home. Prepared by themselves. How novel.

The global pandemic disrupted lives in many ways, none more fundamental than in the way we eat. Home cooking -- food preparation at the very least -- became a necessity. A new respect arose for farmers, delivery systems, food warehousing, service workers. And ordering meal deliveries took the place of eating out. Restaurateurs went out of business or acquiesced to take-out and deliveries. Suddenly the home kitchen became the focal point as it was meant to be; not merely decorative but functional.

According to an AMC Global survey, 60 percent of people have experienced what it's like to dedicate time and labour in elemental cooking with food staples, more often than they ever envisaged they might under normal circumstances. Under these anything-but-normal circumstances everything has changed; people who stockpiled the bare essentials began to understand that they'd have to learn how to use them to advantage.

And suddenly waste became a sin and frugality automatic. Pandemic cooking meant nothing would be allowed to go to waste; no one could know if, when or whether shortages could become more acute and widespread. More prepared meals such as canned soup, frozen pizza, boxed macaroni and cheese have been eaten by 28 percent of the people responding to the AMC Global survey, since the start of the pandemic. People became concerned with making fewer shopping trips.

And a new shopping variation arrived with online food delivery and the sale of food kits. Relatively new in Canada, meal kit providers like Goodfood and HelloFresh have begun to expand their services and their offerings in recognition of their new market niche, not about to evaporate any time soon. Bets are that those who have given food kits a try will stick with them as attractive options once social distancing has been relaxed, they're returned to a normal workday and available time contracts.

Photo by David Ciccon

COVID Food Contamination? Pshaw! Carry on -- As Usual

"It's really not necessary [to wash everything brought home from grocery shopping]."
"You can have potentially dangerous bacterial pathogens in the sink. And people don't generally tend to wash their sinks very well, or clean them that often."
"This is definitely a no-no [washing fruits and vegetables with soap] because we know that soap actually can cause things like vomiting and/or diarrhea."
"If you're getting any symptoms at all that you think could be related to COVID-19, please do not prepare food for other people."
Jeffrey Farber, professor of food science, University of Guelph

Produce is shown in a grocery store in Toronto on Friday, Nov. 30, 2018. An annual report estimates the average Canadian family will pay about $400 more for groceries and roughly $150 more for dining out next year. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

While you're out shopping you have the possibility of virus transmission uppermost in mind. In that everyone fears they may touch a surface that is actively infected and transfer the pathogen to themselves inadvertently. So we keep a distance from others, as advised, and are mindful to keep our hands distant from any possible contaminated surfaces. And then, while shopping, the urge to touch loose fruits and vegetables to test for freshness overcomes us and we 'forget'.

Dr. Farber advises that assessing fruit and vegetables with a tender squeeze is to be avoided: "I know people love to touch their tomatoes, but at these times, look at the tomatoes. If they look good, take the ones you want and move on." If a supermarket you're shopping at has failed to provide disinfectant wipes on entering for your hands, and to task employees to disinfect carts and baskets, and have distancing reminders for their customers, shop elsewhere.

When you arrive home and unload your groceries from the car, place the bags on the counter and wash your hands. Once all your groceries have been placed in the refrigerator or the pantry, disinfect the counter where the bags have sat, and wash your hands again. Oh, did we forget something? Right, washing food containers and foods before they're placed into the refrigerator and pantry. Guess we just took it for granted, right?

Evidently wrong. In that it is totally, according to Dr.Farber, unnecessary. Those videos we've seen online that have informed and inspired us to do the same; fill up a sink of soapy water and stick everything into it to rid surfaces of the presence of the pathogen, a now-familiar ritual that eases our minds, believing we've done the right thing, and whatever we've brought into the house is now 'safe' have been delivering an unneeded message, he says.

Do not, dump and dunk fresh fruit, vegetables, snacks and packaged foods into that sink full of soapy water. No less authorities than Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug administration in fact, recommend the use of cold running water to wash fruit and vegetables, before they are eaten and that "should be more than sufficient", for no evidence exists that links COVID-19 transmission to food or its packaging.

Dr.Farber's opinion does carry weight; as former director of the Bureau of Microbial Hazards at Health Canada, with over 35 years of food safety experience at his back. Cross contamination with bacterial pathogens can occur, if the sink had held something such as raw chicken and hadn't been adequately cleansed, so placing food in a sink to rid it of pathogens may be the right ticket to pick some up....

A shopper uses a paper grocery list at a Trader Joe’s in Brooklyn on March 28.

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images