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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).

The BBC asked the National Police Chiefs' Council about the scale of the problem but it did not respond. However, individual forces told us they had seen a trend of chocolate being targeted.

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

West Midlands Police shared CCTV footage of a man grabbing trays of chocolate, external from a shop in Stourbridge, while Wiltshire Police shared a video of a man dragging a whole shelving stand of chocolate, external out of a shop door.

And earlier last year a man was arrested by Cambridgeshire Police with a coat full of Cadbury's Creme eggs, external.

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.

Supermarkets have also been stepping up security on chocolate bars, with Tesco, external and Co-Op, external 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.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3gqr7p0lqo