Listen
Photo: 123RF
Supermarket staff feel threatened, frustrated, fearful and powerless over shoplifters wheeling out goods by the trolley load. This is the daily experience in some stores around the country.
Staff at Countdown supermarkets have been confronted with machetes, knives, and one instance a gun. Disdain from some shoplifters can extend to walking of the store with trolley laden with meat, cosmetics and alcohol, valued at thousands of dollars.
Point Chevalier Countdown in Auckland is a high risk store - but representative of a nationwide problem. A local resident, whom we are not naming, likens shopping there to running a frightening and demoralising gauntlet.
Countdown's parent company Woolworths NZ has allocated $45m to a safer stores programme, which will ultimately see selected staff in each of the 194 outlets wearing body cameras.
Kathryn discusses the gravity of the situation with Jason Stockill who is the director of stores tor Woolworths NZ, and First Union's Rudd Hughes who is the National Secretary for retail and finance.