AI Takes on Food Theft: How Retailers Are Using Technology to Fight Rising Shoplifting in Europe

 Retail theft is reaching unprecedented levels

With food inflation soaring across Europe retailers are increasingly turning to Artificial Intelligence to protect their assets. According to French daily Le Monde, self-checkout systems have become prime targets for theft, prompting a new wave of innovation from retail tech vendors.

In February, food prices in the Eurozone surged by 15% year-on-year, with France at 14.5%, Germany at 22%, and the Baltic states seeing staggering increases between 25% and 30%. As everyday groceries become more expensive, incidents of shoplifting are on the rise.

Retailers across France, Germany, the UK, and Greece are taking action. Many supermarkets are now placing high-risk products such as steaks and salmon fillets in anti-theft containers equipped with electronic trackers. While shoplifting has always been an issue, the scale of the current trend is forcing retailers to rethink their loss prevention strategies and fast.

“Theft issues are becoming the main topic in the retail industry,” says Evaldas Budvilaitis, Chairman of the Board at ScanWatch, a company that develops advanced AI-driven security systems for self-checkout tills. Speaking to Le Monde, Budvilaitis emphasized that machine learning and computer vision are becoming essential tools for identifying suspicious behavior and reducing shrinkage without compromising the customer experience.

Evaldas Budvilaitis, Chairman of the board at Scanwatch.

Official data confirms the scale of the problem:

• France has seen a 10% increase in food theft since early 2023;
• In the UK shoplifting is up 16%, according to law enforcement;
• Spain has reported a 30.2% spike in theft incidents.

Despite these figures, many retailers remain tight-lipped about shoplifting losses. This makes AI and data analytics even more crucial for offering a way to detect, predict, and deter theft in real time, especially in unsupervised checkout zones.