Sainsbury’s to introduce ‘VAR-style’ cameras at self-checkouts in bid to deter shoplifters

Sainsbury’s has made a major change to its self-checkouts in a bid to crack down on shoplifters.

A camera will now be placed above the self-checkout tills and shoppers will be shown a replay if they do not scan items correctly, as reported by The Sun.

If shoppers attempt to place goods into the bagging area without scanning it properly, a pop-up message will appear.

It will say: “Looks like that last item didn’t scan. Please check you scanned it correctly before continuing.”

A customer said they were sent the VAR-style replay because the pack of basil they bought was “too light”.

A spokesperson for the supermarket said: "We regularly review the security measures in our stores and our decisions to implement them are based on a range of factors, including offering our customers a smooth checkout experience."

It comes as the number of shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales in a year surpassed half a million for the first time on record, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Police recorded 516,971 shoplifting offences in 2024, a 20 per cent increase on the 429,873 offences in 2023 and the highest number recorded since modern record-keeping practices began in 2003.

The ONS said shoplifting offences have been running at record levels for the past two years, noting a "sharp rise" following the Covid-19 pandemic.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) warned retail crime is continuing to “spiral out of control” with shop theft costing retailers more than £2.2 billion a year.

A recent survey by the BRC of major retailers showed there are more than 20 million incidents of shoplifting a year but many go unreported as shopkeepers “simply don’t have faith” that action will be taken by the police.