How do anti-theft alarms work in grocery stores?

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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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>But what about food items in grocery stores, say, a carton of milk? Are tags still embedded in them?

Generally speaking, no. It would be impractical to try and put those tags on grocery items. Moreover, it is more obvious when you steal from a grocery story – if you pass by the exit without paying it is pretty clear you did so; if you wear a pair of pants out of the store you didn’t pay for, it is much less obvious.

>I’ve also read that scanning a barcode essentially deactivates the tag inside

It depends on the system. If you have a serialized item, it can tell the system that monitors tags to ignore the tag for that specific item.

More commonly, though, when you pass it over the barcode scanner there is another system working in tandem that deactivates the tag.

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