Morrisons has joined Tesco by rolling out body cameras to employees in select stores amid surging retail crime.
The supermarket giant will be introducing the devices to workers across 25 stores as part of a trial period, The Grocer reported.
If the trial is successful, the body worn cameras could be launched nationwide, alongisde Morrisons current security measures including body cameras and high-vis vests for guards.
Earlier this week, Tesco began offering body cameras to all store workers as physical assault cases on the leading retailer’s staff have soared to more than 200 each month.
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This also comes as the British Retail Consortium (BRC) found that abuse against retail workers has nearly doubled than that of pre-Covid levels.
Despite this, Asda chairman, Lord Stuart Rose, told LBC yesterday that the supermarket does not use body worn cameras unilaterally and will not be following Tesco in offering body worn cameras to all staff.
He said: “I don’t really want to get to a world where you sit down and everybody’s photographing everybody else for whatever action they take. That’s not a good place to be, but we do have to be careful about how our staff are exposed to dangers.”
As assaults on Waitrose employees have roughly doubled since 2020, Waitrose began offering free coffees to police officers, hoping the ‘thanks a latte’ initiative will reduce thefts by encouraging law enforcement to make stops in stores.
Co-op has also said that its stores have experienced record levels of shoplifting, with an average of nearly 1,000 incidents each day in the first half of this year – an increase of 35%.
The convenience retailer has since extended its trial of anti-theft ‘dummy display packaging’ for some of its targeted products.
