How do anti-theft alarms work in grocery stores?

Question

I know that clothing stores items usually have some kind of RFID tags in them. But what about food items in grocery stores, say, a carton of milk? Are tags still embedded in them?

I’ve also read that scanning a barcode esentially deactivates the tag inside. But wouldn’t that mean that people can scan items and then not pay without setting the alarms off?

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Answer 1

I work in a grocery store and there are no rfid tags at all.

We rely heavily on people to catch most of the theft. Cashiers are required to check in and under the cart, and are sent constant messages reminding them to do so. The loss prevention team is constantly watching the cameras for suspicious behavior, and we’ve recently upgraded the self checkout lanes with what they’re telling me is “AI”.

The really high theft items are kept at the customer service counter. You can’t just pick them up to scan with your regular groceries. You have to go to customer service and buy them. And we generally have an associate in every aisle. (Clearly I do not work at walmart)

Theft is still going to happen, but all of these things together are a good deterrent. There has been a major shift in how many people actually go to SCO (since the AI was added) vs a real cashier, and most of those are the honest people who “don’t like being recorded” (I hate to tell them, they were recorded from the minute they pulled into the parking lot).

Since the honest people aren’t using them, there’s less of a crowd for the thieves to blend into, so they stopped using them as well, and try to just get out the door without going anywhere near a register. This is what I’ve seen after only a few months using this system.

I do not know the numbers to know if actual theft has gone down, but overall business seems a lot slower in general, yet we’re still reaching our daily sales goals. So I have to assume it’s a good deterrent. It feels like it’s not an upgrade to me. It feels like… just close self checkout altogether and double up on cashiers. The only people using it now are the ones who are in a hurry and think they can get out faster than standing in line for a cashier. We’ve also been required to add more people to overlook SCO… and I’m thinking, “close them! get these people tills! this is stupid!!!!!!!”………….. but wtf do I know.