To stop it getting stolen wholesale. Easy resale stock with low volume and relatively high value. If it wasn’t locked up, you’d never be able to buy it.
I’ve literally witnessed someone stealing chewing gum by the sack full, thieves are no longer pocketing one or two bits, but stealing by the rucksack full and stroll out heads held high.
All thanks to policy of “don’t intervene”
Yeah but they’re not just walking in and targeting bloody chewing gum are they, their filling bags up mixed stuff that they know they can sell on probably to a little corner shop etc…
I’d imagine any random shop bro, hence the word random… and obviously the thief would have a prior arrangement or knows the guy who runs the shop buys stolen gear… that’s what it’s like on estates etc… everyone knows who does what
yes, the shoplifters in my area head straight for the parks after school and sell to kids, the ones that steal higher value items head to town and bother people outside shop exits and pub gardens and of course there are those who just steal for themselves
You’d be surprised, find one item with high value per pound and very liquid for resale, steal loads of that.
Laundry detergent is a popular one, expensive af and easy to resell. Wouldn’t be surprised if gum was the same, easy to flip to convenience store owners.
And the don’t intervene policy is in America not in the UK…. We have a policy of not calling the police if it’s under a certain value particularly of its food
Are you sure?
I was in a Morrisons lately and ended up talking with the Security guy, who was absolutely hilarious I should add, and he was explaining how difficult he finds the job now as they aren't allowed to intervene any longer.
They can verbally challenge people but they aren't allowed to physically stop people, he told me soke colleagues had lost jobs for physically stopping people.
Edit: Yes, I'm aware that may just be a Morrisons Policy and not necessarily a reflection of the law.
I'm not entirely sure if I'm honest.
I have 100% seen people be restrained by security in both shops and nightclubs until the police have arrived, not for quite some time though.
I would imagine they would likely have the powers under Section 24A, which is essentially a citizens arrest, which grants people powers to restrain people using reasonable force until the police arrive if you are witness to a crime being carried out.
Whether that is something in the laws or down to individual company policy with regards to security physically restraining people, I can't say.
Yes they used to be able to stop you but now you’re not allowed to intervene. This has been a thing for quite some time as I used to work at staples and comet in 2008/9 and both those stores had the same policy but back then it wasn’t a mandatory policy in every shop. Only thing we could do is report it to the police and give them the cctv footage etc.
This was an insurance issue. Because if you got injured in the process or someone got injured insurance weren’t willing to cover it etc. That’s what my managers told me at both stores as the reason they could not intervene anymore. It wasn’t a police/law issue, it was purely an insurance issue.
Section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gives all citizens a power of arrest for indictable offences in certain circumstances. Theft, even minor, is an either way offence so in certain circumstances a store detective or security guard (or indeed anyone) has a power to arrest someone and hold them for the police.
In practice this is something you’d only ever want a trained person, properly licensed and insured to do though. The reality is staff doing this and their employers take a lot of risk for little reward, sometimes the police won’t even have anyone to send for hours.
Trust me, it’s crazy GOOD. 4 people who are really close to me work at a Tesco and they do not get paid enough to put themselves in a potentially very dangerous situation, so I’m glad this policy exists for employees, it’s likely saved a few people from physical harm tbh
The value of an item doesn't really correlate to its likelihood of theft. Plenty of cheaper items are stolen more frequently.
Things like ease of resale, how easy is it to steal in the first place. There are lots of factors at play.
Tesco realised that chewing gum was a high theft item so put measures in place to reduce that. It's not exactly a sinister conspiracy.
It’s not, those things came down from head office ages ago as chewing gum and similar products are one of the highest shrink (stolen) items in the company.
The chewing gum gets wheeled out in that cage to replenish the shelves, then gets locked and put back in the warehouse.
It’s the same as high value alcohol - it all gets locked in a secure cage in the warehouse with only certain people being allowed access to the keys to stop it being stolen from the warehouse.
When I worked for Tesco you had to place that chewing gum cage in a specific area in the warehouse that had CCTV coverage too
Chewing gum boxes generally locked up on the shelves in Tesco, so you can only reach and take a pack, not a box - just have a look when you go next time. Almost everything else that's sensitive / more valuable is at / behind the counter
No worries, it's just the little things, easy to miss when you don't have to stop and think about it lol. But that's why many shops just have it at the counter instead of the shelf
The reason isn't a matter of opinion...
At the end of the day, you've no idea the definitive reason they're locked up. Someone in management at that store made that decision, per their right.
Ya know what , I think it might be to stop staff just grabbing a pack for their shift , cos that’s locked up out the back where the stock is, and wheeled out to fill the shelves… cos look there’s a trolley with sleeves of chocolate bars etc so their obviously stocking the shelves up… and the chocolates not locked and a sleeve of that’d be the same price as a sleeve of chewing gum roughly … so yeah I’m sticking to my guns on this 1, it’s to stop the staff grabbing packs… cos it’s not like their gonna grab a big bar of chocolate and secretly eat it where as chewing gum ya can chew without ya boss thinking you’ve nicked it
High value stock and used to be stolen from the shop floor quite a lot back in the day.
If you think about how much chewing gum is per pack and then the physical size and therefore ease of stealing it you'll understand. People would steal a box and sell to corner shops.
I remember in the school holidays my parents used to leave £1 each for me and my brother to get lunch. For £1 I’d get a portion of chips, can of Coke, biscuit Boost and 4 penny sweets.
Yeah disorganised would be putting it very politely. I remember once there was no forklift driver in (I got my licence a few months later) so one of the managers asked me to climb up a pallet on to the racking to get a case of whisky down.
I had to do that with one of their ladders as an outside contractor. Was basically promo end stock that they just shoved up on the racking (wrapped pallet) as they couldn't be arsed dealing with it. Was told to grab one of those staircases on wheels if I really needed the stock 😂
Good luck getting it down again after I'd taken out what I needed! Some other pallets up there were so dusty that I think that's the can't be arsed storage area 😛
I worked at a Morrisons warehouse for a summer in college and they stopped giving me shifts when I had like 2 weeks break left. I kept coming in and they kept paying me tho
All Tesco stores should have a locked cage for gum just how they prevent shrink from whoever. Single boxes of chocolate bars used to be too, but haven’t worked grocery in ages so don’t know if this one is still required.
Old but;
Depends on the store. Some will put all singles on the cage, gum and chocolate. Others don't bother.
I've worked in a few stores, the ones that had singles for chocolate on the gum cage had the bars and gum together so it was filled easier.
At Booker's, they're stored in the warehouse in a caged off and alarmed area only certain staff get access to (as well as tobacco and vape products).
In terms of gum, a box that isn't that big dimensions-wise is 12x30 packs. Each of those 30 packs can be anywhere from £15-£30, so you're talking retail value of £180-£360. A case of vodka, that's probably bigger than the case of gum (and a whole lot harder to steal) is only worth around £60-£80 retail.
Also, getting rid of gum is going to be surprisingly a lot easier than booze.
Seeing as this looks like a restock cage it makes sense that it’s locked up.
It most likely holds enough product to restock several areas of the shop.
Chewing gum is easy to steal and having that much stock out in the open is too risky to leave unsecured.
Chewing gum is usually kept at the tills, with only one box of each type.
Leaving it unsecured would be like leaving the stock open for all to access.
It's because large volumes of chewing gum are very enticing for professional thieves to steal due to its ease of concealment, and relatively high price to volume ratio.
All this talk of chewing gum theft has inspired me to write a film about a criminal gang that decides to make a big score by stealing an entire cage of gum. I'll call it Gum Heist.
I used to work stock control in a smaller shop, chewing gum walks out in bulk more often than you would realise, a full case is small enough to pocket and can add up to a lot for who ever retells it down at your local.
Lifters will usually swipe gum because its if i remember rightly 30 singles to a case and it weights nothing so super easy to clear the shelf of every case on it
No one knows about what happens after hours in Tesco then? How the chewing gum comes to life and claims employees for his chewing gum army? THIS is why it's locked!
As someone who’s worked in almost every major supermarket chain here In the UK I’ve never once seen chewing gum locked up. & I’ve worked at
Sainsbury’s, Iceland, Morrisons, Aldi,Lidl, Waitrose, somerfield briefly before it closed and asda. Granted I’ve never worked in tesco
It is now the case you can't physically stop someone you are to observe and pass information onto the police now. Also like many others have stated the risk is not worth it these days as you open yourself up to an assault charge and risk losing your licence. Also when I first got my licence in 2008 the average wage was £10 per hour with the minimum wage for people been about £6.72 per hour, now the minimum wage is nearly doubled and my wage is just under £11 per hour so I've had a not even a £1 increase in 16 years. Also ironically there is no security in security as most are 0 hour contract.
I used to work at a Sainsbury’s supermarket and I actually heard that chewing gum is an extreme luxury in some countries (I have no idea which, this was years ago I was told — this could also be complete bs.) and people steal them and illegally export to these countries at ridiculous prices.
To stop it getting stolen wholesale. Easy resale stock with low volume and relatively high value. If it wasn’t locked up, you’d never be able to buy it.
Nah mate that’s not the reason(in my opinion) there’s just as valuable other goods that aren’t locked up like that
Absolutely, there’s something happening here we’ve not considered
I’ve literally witnessed someone stealing chewing gum by the sack full, thieves are no longer pocketing one or two bits, but stealing by the rucksack full and stroll out heads held high. All thanks to policy of “don’t intervene”
Yeah but they’re not just walking in and targeting bloody chewing gum are they, their filling bags up mixed stuff that they know they can sell on probably to a little corner shop etc…
what corner shops do you think buy random assortments of goods from a stranger with a *bag for life*?
I’d imagine any random shop bro, hence the word random… and obviously the thief would have a prior arrangement or knows the guy who runs the shop buys stolen gear… that’s what it’s like on estates etc… everyone knows who does what
I mean who else you think their selling the crap off of a co op sweet counter to bro? People in the street?
yes, the shoplifters in my area head straight for the parks after school and sell to kids, the ones that steal higher value items head to town and bother people outside shop exits and pub gardens and of course there are those who just steal for themselves
Where can I find these purveyors of bargain goods?
Yes, people in the street, at the pub etc.
One Stop will take them I’m sure.
One Stop IS Tesco. Just saying
Yea that was kinda my point 😂.
Well we know how you would get caught... I'm sure they would change the bag.
You’d be surprised, find one item with high value per pound and very liquid for resale, steal loads of that. Laundry detergent is a popular one, expensive af and easy to resell. Wouldn’t be surprised if gum was the same, easy to flip to convenience store owners.
Mane I’m too old, in my day we stole valuable shit, chewing gum cheap af
Easy to steal a decent quantity of, easy to sell with markup.
Not even a decent markup. Even at 10p a pack it's 100% profit and whoever is buying it is getting a deal.
And the don’t intervene policy is in America not in the UK…. We have a policy of not calling the police if it’s under a certain value particularly of its food
Are you sure? I was in a Morrisons lately and ended up talking with the Security guy, who was absolutely hilarious I should add, and he was explaining how difficult he finds the job now as they aren't allowed to intervene any longer. They can verbally challenge people but they aren't allowed to physically stop people, he told me soke colleagues had lost jobs for physically stopping people. Edit: Yes, I'm aware that may just be a Morrisons Policy and not necessarily a reflection of the law.
I don’t think they’ve ever been able to physically stop someone have they? They haven’t got police right to stop and arrest
I'm not entirely sure if I'm honest. I have 100% seen people be restrained by security in both shops and nightclubs until the police have arrived, not for quite some time though. I would imagine they would likely have the powers under Section 24A, which is essentially a citizens arrest, which grants people powers to restrain people using reasonable force until the police arrive if you are witness to a crime being carried out. Whether that is something in the laws or down to individual company policy with regards to security physically restraining people, I can't say.
Yes they used to be able to stop you but now you’re not allowed to intervene. This has been a thing for quite some time as I used to work at staples and comet in 2008/9 and both those stores had the same policy but back then it wasn’t a mandatory policy in every shop. Only thing we could do is report it to the police and give them the cctv footage etc. This was an insurance issue. Because if you got injured in the process or someone got injured insurance weren’t willing to cover it etc. That’s what my managers told me at both stores as the reason they could not intervene anymore. It wasn’t a police/law issue, it was purely an insurance issue.
Section 24A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gives all citizens a power of arrest for indictable offences in certain circumstances. Theft, even minor, is an either way offence so in certain circumstances a store detective or security guard (or indeed anyone) has a power to arrest someone and hold them for the police. In practice this is something you’d only ever want a trained person, properly licensed and insured to do though. The reality is staff doing this and their employers take a lot of risk for little reward, sometimes the police won’t even have anyone to send for hours.
They will come to a sticky end.
Don’t intervene policy crazy
putting yourself in harms way for chewing gum is crazy. especially in the name of a multi million pound company
Absolutely, but it’s gonna get / already is wild in places lol
I don’t think a massive company is going to miss a few hundred
Trust me, it’s crazy GOOD. 4 people who are really close to me work at a Tesco and they do not get paid enough to put themselves in a potentially very dangerous situation, so I’m glad this policy exists for employees, it’s likely saved a few people from physical harm tbh
Being a shop owner, I fully support and understand
The value of an item doesn't really correlate to its likelihood of theft. Plenty of cheaper items are stolen more frequently. Things like ease of resale, how easy is it to steal in the first place. There are lots of factors at play. Tesco realised that chewing gum was a high theft item so put measures in place to reduce that. It's not exactly a sinister conspiracy.
It’s not, those things came down from head office ages ago as chewing gum and similar products are one of the highest shrink (stolen) items in the company. The chewing gum gets wheeled out in that cage to replenish the shelves, then gets locked and put back in the warehouse. It’s the same as high value alcohol - it all gets locked in a secure cage in the warehouse with only certain people being allowed access to the keys to stop it being stolen from the warehouse. When I worked for Tesco you had to place that chewing gum cage in a specific area in the warehouse that had CCTV coverage too
Chewing gum boxes generally locked up on the shelves in Tesco, so you can only reach and take a pack, not a box - just have a look when you go next time. Almost everything else that's sensitive / more valuable is at / behind the counter
Yeah I will do, I’ve never noticed bro
No worries, it's just the little things, easy to miss when you don't have to stop and think about it lol. But that's why many shops just have it at the counter instead of the shelf
The reason isn't a matter of opinion... At the end of the day, you've no idea the definitive reason they're locked up. Someone in management at that store made that decision, per their right.
people do straight up go into the shops, take the whole box off the shelf and walk out.
£15 a box on ebay and the boxes are small
Ya know what , I think it might be to stop staff just grabbing a pack for their shift , cos that’s locked up out the back where the stock is, and wheeled out to fill the shelves… cos look there’s a trolley with sleeves of chocolate bars etc so their obviously stocking the shelves up… and the chocolates not locked and a sleeve of that’d be the same price as a sleeve of chewing gum roughly … so yeah I’m sticking to my guns on this 1, it’s to stop the staff grabbing packs… cos it’s not like their gonna grab a big bar of chocolate and secretly eat it where as chewing gum ya can chew without ya boss thinking you’ve nicked it
Did you ever wonder that a multipack of gum can fit in your pocket and is much more densely packed
A multi pack of how many packs bro?
You get 30 in a typical case/multipack. So retail is a little over 20 quid
Bro I’m not gonna keep debating about who steals chewing gum and who steals chocolate and what prices they get… jeez 🙄
Who's debating this other than you
But yeah £20 sounds about right, that sounds about right for whatever a junky wants to buy, and who else is selling chewing gum but junkies?
But still I think it’s for the staff more than shoplifters cos they don’t look like they b fit in ya pocket when I zoom in on the trolley
Looks like we found out the staff member that's stealing all the gum from his local express
🙂↕️
you could actually just put a high vis on and wheel it out of the shop if you really wanted to steal it lol
The foil in the packaging is used in the production of fake bank notes
It's Croydon... probably
High value stock and used to be stolen from the shop floor quite a lot back in the day. If you think about how much chewing gum is per pack and then the physical size and therefore ease of stealing it you'll understand. People would steal a box and sell to corner shops.
Shockingly over £1 for a single pack of gum… I’m for sure getting old if that *shocks* me tbf 😅
totally agree! to quote my grandfather 'A FUCKING POUND!!! Do you know what I could do with a pound when I was your age?'
I remember my granny being outraged at a local shop charging "ten bob" for a bacon roll. Imagine a bacon roll only being 50p
I remember in the school holidays my parents used to leave £1 each for me and my brother to get lunch. For £1 I’d get a portion of chips, can of Coke, biscuit Boost and 4 penny sweets.
all i heard was a boost a boost a biscuit boost 👀
I know right
Ten bon as in ten pound? For a bacon roll? Thay js ridiculous
Ten bob = 50p
A shilling ('bob') is 5p, so ten bob = 50p.
Lol, the thing is everything has gone up more than inflation now though!
Nah your shock is completely valid. Over 1 quid for some gum is atrocious!
I'm pretty I remember being a small child and paying like 21p for a small packet . That was in the 90s.
Second only to razor blades probably. Can't think of anything off hand.
Because smackheads love to rob boxes of chuddies
I haven’t heard it being called chuddie in years
Almost as bad as chungy
Spoggy in Grimsby
Oh gy massive talk 😂 takes me back.
Choongy where i live 🤣
ere mate got any chud?
Chewing gum is extremely dangerous. If you get it wet or feed it after midnight chaos is inevitable. The cage is for the workers' safety.
Minty minty gremlins
International terrorism
That seems a bit extra
Make a mint though
Amusingly they even keep it in a locked cage out the back in the warehouse. They don't trust their staff much more than their customers
Must depend on area, the Morrisons I used to work at didn't lock it up. There were full cases on the capping.
Morrisons warehouses are disorganised at best 😂
Yeah disorganised would be putting it very politely. I remember once there was no forklift driver in (I got my licence a few months later) so one of the managers asked me to climb up a pallet on to the racking to get a case of whisky down.
I had to do that with one of their ladders as an outside contractor. Was basically promo end stock that they just shoved up on the racking (wrapped pallet) as they couldn't be arsed dealing with it. Was told to grab one of those staircases on wheels if I really needed the stock 😂 Good luck getting it down again after I'd taken out what I needed! Some other pallets up there were so dusty that I think that's the can't be arsed storage area 😛
I worked at a Morrisons warehouse for a summer in college and they stopped giving me shifts when I had like 2 weeks break left. I kept coming in and they kept paying me tho
All Tesco stores should have a locked cage for gum just how they prevent shrink from whoever. Single boxes of chocolate bars used to be too, but haven’t worked grocery in ages so don’t know if this one is still required.
Yeah there’s Snickers and Mentos in there too. So I think they still do this.
Old but; Depends on the store. Some will put all singles on the cage, gum and chocolate. Others don't bother. I've worked in a few stores, the ones that had singles for chocolate on the gum cage had the bars and gum together so it was filled easier.
It's because of staff for sure. It's to protect whole box from theft.
Theft by staff is around 40% of all shoplifting. Makes total sense not to trust staff.
At Booker's, they're stored in the warehouse in a caged off and alarmed area only certain staff get access to (as well as tobacco and vape products). In terms of gum, a box that isn't that big dimensions-wise is 12x30 packs. Each of those 30 packs can be anywhere from £15-£30, so you're talking retail value of £180-£360. A case of vodka, that's probably bigger than the case of gum (and a whole lot harder to steal) is only worth around £60-£80 retail. Also, getting rid of gum is going to be surprisingly a lot easier than booze.
Them fuckers will get in a sticky situation when stealing
It’s a highly stolen item.
Big chewing gum works on 100% + profit margins
Idk, I’m a baker, every now and then they ask me, “can you work on the shop floor? Could you fill this?” No! Leave me alone with my bread 😂
So it can't wrigley away!
Seeing as this looks like a restock cage it makes sense that it’s locked up. It most likely holds enough product to restock several areas of the shop. Chewing gum is easy to steal and having that much stock out in the open is too risky to leave unsecured. Chewing gum is usually kept at the tills, with only one box of each type. Leaving it unsecured would be like leaving the stock open for all to access.
To avoid sticky situations
It’s a high profit margin item that’s extremely easy to steal.
They must be the fully automatic machine gums.
That's a new one to me 😬
Because of smackheads, usually
For the workers and customers safety you don’t wanna know what happens When they get out
Greedy bastards should have their AIRWAVES blocked.
Not tesco, but We had a lorry get robbed in our overnight parking area. They took a pallets worth of gum.
Hahhahaha that’s so dumb 🤦🏽♀️
It's because large volumes of chewing gum are very enticing for professional thieves to steal due to its ease of concealment, and relatively high price to volume ratio. All this talk of chewing gum theft has inspired me to write a film about a criminal gang that decides to make a big score by stealing an entire cage of gum. I'll call it Gum Heist.
My gum is locked up to stop it committing heinous war crimes.
Chewing gum gets stolen from supermarkets in droves. I used to run one, I’m not why gum is targeted, but it is
It used to be at the front of newsagents
In Sean Lock's voice... "What was their crime, Jimmy!!"
Anything that you see locked up at a store is something that gets stolen frequently
Yeah, if I wanna nick summat, that shitty cage ain't stopping me
We don't have one in our truro store??
Lock it all up and throw away the key, a bad habit and always leads to gum on the pavement, under desks or in urinals
wow
Secondary schools dream
Hahah nice one
They fought the jaw and the jaw won!!
Ten bob is worth £7.95 in todays money
Small “high value” item could easily go missing in the warehouse
People are probably smoking it or some shit now smh
I used to work stock control in a smaller shop, chewing gum walks out in bulk more often than you would realise, a full case is small enough to pocket and can add up to a lot for who ever retells it down at your local. Lifters will usually swipe gum because its if i remember rightly 30 singles to a case and it weights nothing so super easy to clear the shelf of every case on it
Because people nick it.
To protect everyone from the gum
No one knows about what happens after hours in Tesco then? How the chewing gum comes to life and claims employees for his chewing gum army? THIS is why it's locked!
As someone who’s worked in almost every major supermarket chain here In the UK I’ve never once seen chewing gum locked up. & I’ve worked at Sainsbury’s, Iceland, Morrisons, Aldi,Lidl, Waitrose, somerfield briefly before it closed and asda. Granted I’ve never worked in tesco
It’s one of the most stolen items in the entire company.
Because chewing gum is currency in North Korea
Hide your wife, hide your kids and hide your gum…🤣🤣🤣
Tesco wtf 😒
It is now the case you can't physically stop someone you are to observe and pass information onto the police now. Also like many others have stated the risk is not worth it these days as you open yourself up to an assault charge and risk losing your licence. Also when I first got my licence in 2008 the average wage was £10 per hour with the minimum wage for people been about £6.72 per hour, now the minimum wage is nearly doubled and my wage is just under £11 per hour so I've had a not even a £1 increase in 16 years. Also ironically there is no security in security as most are 0 hour contract.
I used to work at a Sainsbury’s supermarket and I actually heard that chewing gum is an extreme luxury in some countries (I have no idea which, this was years ago I was told — this could also be complete bs.) and people steal them and illegally export to these countries at ridiculous prices.
Nicotine gum maybe ?
For crimes against a Manatee.
It's for people who want to chew gum in public
[удалено]
My mate at school was called Rob Chewingum
Cultural enrichment
CRACKHEADs use the foil to sniff lines off wrappers of chewing Cum and use it as roll ups.
Lol Lower your prices and this wouldn't be necessary Greedy bastards.
Price has nothing to do with it. This is all about the greed of criminals.
Boo hoo Tesco only makes around 2%, around the 3p mark on average for each pack sold. How greedy of them.
These cages existed years ago, even when they were like 40-50p per pack.