The town centre and South Norwood are once again bracketed in areas where anti-social behaviour – and shoplifting – is ‘most acute’, as bakery chain opts to make its goods more secure in-store
Theft-proof: Greggs have decided that having their stores laid out as ‘help yourself’ for thieves is no longer good business practice
Greggs, the high street bakery and sandwich chain, has finally taken the decision not to invite shoplifters to help themselves, and is to place products behind the counters and secure cabinets, including at the branch in West Croydon.
Greggs axed its “help yourself self-service” approach in South Norwood last year, and it is now to (sausage) roll-out a similar approach at its shop in West Croydon, as well as Peckham, Whitechapel and Upton Park, in Birmingham and Wilford in Nottinghamshire.
It has become almost commonplace for law-abiding Greggs customers to stand open-mouthed at the counter as they pay for their lunchtime meal deal as someone walked in off the street to scoop up an armful of jam doughnuts and scarper, with counter staff watching on, barely registering a shrug.
Occasionally, a member of staff might push an alarm button, which raised no alarm. But even when there are uniformed security guards on the door, they would rarely intervene over the latest nicked BLT sandwich.
Greggs has said previously it was trialling the measure at stores which are “exposed to higher levels of anti-social behaviour”. The latest move will see Greggs replace open cabinets with secure counters in the shops where it says anti-social behaviour is “most acute”.
The use of language is perhaps indicative of the previous approach: shoplifting has been reduced from “crime” to “anti-social behaviour”.
The latest announcement follows on from the measures introduced at South Norwood and elsewhere last year, but is only being trialled at a handful of Greggs’ 2,600 bakeries.
In 2024, shoplifting offences recorded by the police rose by 20% to 516,971, according the Office for National Statistics. But the number of thefts recorded by retailers was 20.4million, up by 3.7million year-on-year, according to the British Retail Consortium, suggesting that many crimes were going unreported to the police, reflecting the zero-action approach to shoplifting witnessed in Greggs and many other high street retailers.
According to yesterday’s announcement, the company is also piloting software that shares incident data directly with local police stations to speed up reporting and response. Again, something which suggests that the company’s previous business practice was not to bother, in the knowledge that the police would rarely attend, never mind investigate.
Government ministers have announced an extra 3,000 neighbourhood police officers and removed the informal threshold that limited prosecutions for thefts under £200.
Of the move, Greggs said: “This is one of a number of initiatives we are trialling across a very small number of shops which are exposed to higher levels of anti-social behaviour.”
It added that the trials were targeted and temporary while the impact on theft and customer experience is assessed.
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
The absolute STATE of this country. Honestly at this point, calling Thanos is seeming like a pretty good option.
I hope the dreaded MSM don’t read this. “Croydon Green mayoral hopeful wants to decriminalise shoplifting”.
Yes, Chris, you don’t want the MSM to do a hit on you and your delusions
You’re right. But I’m not standing for Mayor, so no one gives a flying fuck what I say
There, there, the people who vote your comments up or down or reply care what you say
I had to Google Thanos and I have to say he’s the spitting image of our Mayor. Never knew Marvel had a Croydon connection
The gap between the amount of tax owed and the amount the government actually receives has grown to nearly £50 billion per year. The vast majority of that unpaid tax is from rich individuals and businesses who could easily afford to pay what they owe but choose not to.
That missing £50 billion could be spent on public services, creating jobs, and making everyone better off. When it comes to tackling crime, I don’t think trying to stop a poor person getting a sausage roll to eat is the biggest issue we face in this country.
Who said it was?
But theft is theft, however hungry you might be.
Oi, Peter, you need to reset your password. Somebody’s posting in your name and making you look a bit silly
It’s not surprising that businesses will quite sensibly make changes to reduce shoplifting and assaults on staff, nothing controversial about that.
Equally unsurprising is that the levels of poverty and inequality in this the fifth largest economy in the world are driving more people to steal food to survive day to day. Increasing police numbers and locking more people up whilst cutting the benefits safety net for the poorest and most vulnerable isn’t addressing the cause of the problem, just papering over the symptoms.
There is a serious debate to be had about fairer taxes on profiteering companies like BP and Amazon to fund local services.
Why aren’t you a mayoral candidate, Brian?