Sainsbury’s boss Simon Roberts has said that abuse and physical attacks on Sainsbury’s staff have “escalated through last year” and backed calls for changes in the law to protect shopworkers.
Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Roberts said he saw an increase in retail crime over last year and that he has been working with the government and fellow retail bosses to work out a solution to clamp down on the problem.
“I see a report every day on the number of violent incidents and assaults on our people in our petrol stations, our convenience stores and in our shops,” Roberts said.
“Any situation where a human being feels threatened or not safe – we need to put the strength of the law behind that,” he added.
“We have a responsibility and the government and police do as well.”
Roberts said Sainsbury’s had been leading the way on body-worn cameras for staff, investing millions to ensure they can be offered to all of its 150,000 employees.
When active, the cameras send a signal to a support team who can watch the footage live. If necessary, support staff can ring the police and ask for officers to be sent to the store.
“We wanted to lead the industry [on body cameras],” Roberts told The Mail. “There were all kinds of issues around data protection, but in the end, you just have to take a position.”
Roberts is speaking out as the cost of retail crime was put at £1bn last year.
“The key point is that this should not be in any way just overlooked,” he said. “This is a crime. Stealing is a crime.”
Big spender
In the same interview, Roberts said Sainsbury’s will have splashed out more than £220m on cutting prices for shoppers by the end of the financial year.
Sainsbury’s has done this through its Aldi Price Match initiative and discounts for Nectar card customers.
“Our customers can now buy a whole weekly shop for the same price as Aldi,” he said.
“We have saved £1.3bn of costs. We had to make some tough decisions. We decided not to run counters [for cheese, meat and fish] anymore, and we reduced the number of office locations and consolidated them,” Roberts said.
Due to Roberts’ Food First strategy at Sainsbury’s, all profits from other parts of the business such as Argos, Tu clothing and Habitat are all now invested back into the food side of the company.
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