Chocolate kept in anti-theft boxes as shops warn it's being stolen to order

Chocolate bars are being locked in plastic boxes in some UK shops as retailers and police forces warn thieves are stealing them to order.

Sainsbury's said it had begun using "boxes on products which are regularly targeted", with £2.60 bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk locked up in one London branch.

Chocolate was more recently being "sold on by criminals and is now being targeted more frequently by prolific offenders," according to the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS).

Some individual police forces told us they had seen a specific trend of chocolate being targeted. The National Police Chiefs' Council said it was working to tackle this type of crime.

In recent months some police forces have posted videos of chocolate being stolen to highlight the issue.

Cambridgeshire Police told the BBC: "Chocolate is one of a number of high-value items thieves often target, along with products such as alcohol, meat and coffee.

"Retail theft has a real and lasting impact – not just on businesses, but on the staff who have to deal with related abuse and intimidation."

Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium's annual crime report found there were 5.5 million detected incidents of shop theft last year, and 1,600 daily incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers. Although this was down by a fifth on the previous year, it was still the second highest on record.

'Swiping the whole shelf'

Supermarkets have also been stepping up security on chocolate bars, with Tesco and Co-Op as well as Sainsbury's using the transparent boxes which customers have to ask staff to open.

The Heart of England Co-Op group, which runs 38 stores in the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, told the BBC chocolate theft cost it £250,000 last year. It was the group's most stolen product in 2024 and topped only by alcohol in 2025, it said.

Chief executive Steve Browne told the BBC chocolate theft was a "massive issue".

"In a particular shop, one individual could cost us thousands of pounds in a week," he said. "They were coming in... then literally swiping the whole shelf."

He said a shelf of chocolate could be worth £500 and the group had spent £3m on security and other measures to prevent thefts.

Sunita Aggarwal runs two convenience stores in Leicester and Sheffield.

"People are just coming in, and nicking boxes and boxes of chocolate," she said.

"We know illicit trade is definitely on the up. As retailers, we know it goes on in front of us."

Aggarwal says she has installed more than 30 CCTV cameras and uses AI technology to detect thieves, with pictures of known shoplifters at the till.

Her team now only half-fill the shelves to limit losses and have stopped promoting chocolate on easy access end-of-aisle positions.

Fiona Avenal Malone runs a shop in Tenby, Wales and says she is losing £200-£300 a week on chocolate thefts.

"We noticed that we've put out a whole line of chocolate bars, and then all of a sudden there's only one left," she said.

"Then you go and check the CCTV, and then you see it happening, on the screen, which is really frustrating."

Paul Cheema, owner of Malcom's convenience stores in Coventry, said: "Chocolate is the new buzzword for organised crime.

"It was razors, cheese, coffee. Today, these people that are taking stock from convenience stores, from supermarkets, it's taken to order. So chocolate is primetime now."

Cheema said stock was sold on "whether it goes back into another convenience store, a cafe, a bar, restaurant. It's prolific at the moment," adding that shoplifters easily take "£200, maybe £250 of chocolate in the back of a rucksack".

In order to tackle chocolate theft, the ACS says shopkeepers need more help from police and stronger sentences for criminals.

Chief executive James Lowman said: "Confectionery, like other products commonly stolen from local shops, is being re-sold through illicit markets that help fund wider criminal activity.

"Alongside better police support and effective sentences for repeat offenders, we need action to shut down the networks re-selling stolen goods."

A National Police Chiefs' Council spokesperson said its Retail Crime Strategy "brings together policing, retailers, the security industry and academia to collectively tackle this crime type".

They said this included training and support for retailers, advising on best use of security and investment in technology and quicker and easier reporting systems.

They added it was seeing "much progress in police forces developing their response to retail crime". They said Opal, policing's central intelligence unit for serious organised acquisitive crime, collates intelligence from retailers and police forces to map out potential organised crime activity across the country.

The team works with police forces to develop investigations and bring offenders to justice, they said.