The Giant Food Company announced an exponential increase in thefts, which have cost the company millions of dollars.
Ira Kress, the president of Giant Food, said the trend he’s seeing now is completely different than what he’s seen in his nearly four decades of work.
“The level of robberies and the level of violence associated with the robberies have increased probably five to 10 times in the last three years,” he said.
Organized groups often rob multiple stores, taking multiple items at once, according to Kress.
“It’s to make money, simply,” he added. “These are organized groups that commit retail crimes or individuals that steal product en masse.”
Giant hired more security guards, reduced their hours and closed their back entrances. He also secured certain products, such as baby formula, razors, and in some stores, certain types of soaps, deodorants, or air fresheners.
“Some products are more monetizable than others,” Kress said.
At a Giant supermarket in Oxon Hill, Maryland, in November 2022, a security guard was shot by a robber, according to police. The security guard also fired, killing both people.
“It shouldn’t happen,” Kress continued. “No one should enter a supermarket and not come out alive. Nobody”.
The National Retail Federation recently said that retailers have seen an 80% increase in violence associated with retail crime since the pandemic.
“It’s very difficult to ask employees to put themselves in harm’s way, because they’re not only endangering themselves, if there’s a weapon involved, they’re endangering all the customers that are in that store,” Mark Mathews said. of the National Federation of Retailers.
Kress believes that stricter penalties should be imposed on those who commit the crimes.
“In the absence of those stricter laws, in the absence of those laws being enforced…we continue to see an increase in crime and violence,” he said.
