- Brits seemingly bought 800 million more carrots last year compared to 2013
- Criminologist Emmeline Taylor from City, University of London, blames increase on self-checkout thieves
- Many Brits using the self-checkout trick do not see themselves as stealing
Sales of carrots have been soaring across the UK as self-checkout thieves pretend to buy the cheap vegetable while packing more expensive items such as avocados, a criminologist has claimed.
Carrots are often the cheapest vegetable by weight, meaning many Brits using self-checkout machines can save themselves money by lying about which item they are weighing when buying loose products.
Brits seemingly bought 800 million more carrots last year compared to 2013.
Senior Criminology lecturer Emmeline Taylor, from City, University of London, told the Times: ‘I was working with retailers to reduce shoplifting when one major supermarket discovered it had sold more carrots than it had ever had in stock.
Sales of carrots have been soaring across the UK as self-checkout thieves pretend to buy the cheap vegetable while packing more expensive fruits such as avocados, a criminologist has claimed (file photo)
Popular orange vegetable? Brits seemingly bought 800 million more carrots last year compared to 2013 (file photo)
‘Puzzled by this development it looked into its inventories and found that in some cases customers were apparently purchasing 18kg of carrots in one go.
‘Unfortunately this wasn’t a sudden switch to healthy eating, it was an early sign of a new type of shoplifter.’
Britain has 50,000 self-service tills and more than £3billion worth of goods are estimated to be stolen through them every year.
Theft from these types of tills has become so common that nearly 25 per cent of shoppers have admitted to taking at least one item without paying for it.
Theft from these types of tills has become so common that one in four people have admitted to taking at least one item without paying
Ms Taylor says that Brits committing ‘discount theft’ may not even view it as stealing.
She added: ‘This behaviour is perceived as cheating the system or a way of “gamifying” an otherwise mundane routine.’
Ms Taylor refers to the thieves by the acronym SWIPERS, which stands for seemingly well-intentioned patrons engaging in routine shoplifting, and has placed them into four categories.
The categories are:
- Accidental – shoppers who couldn’t get an item to scan or did not realise it hadn’t
- Switchers – those who switch labels or say they are buying a different item when entering loose fruit or vegetables
- Compensators – those who justify stealing by saying retailers earn enough money already
- Frustrated – shoppers who justify stealing because of issues in store including damaged barcodes
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