Coles shoppers have spotted a ‘sad’ detail in the fresh meat aisle as the supermarket giant goes to extreme lengths to stop theft.
The customer was doing their grocery shop at the Parabanks store in Salisbury, about 25km north of Adelaide’s CBD, when they noticed select meat products – including scotch fillet, porterhouse and eye fillet – were fitted with security tags.
The yellow security tags came as a huge surprise to the shopper, particularly as they are more commonly found on clothing in department stores.
‘Ventured a little too far last night, appears Coles Parabanks may have a problem with people stealing their meat,’ the customer speculated in a Reddit thread.
What surprised many was the relatively reasonable prices of the steaks, with the supermarket offering two packs of scotch fillet for just $15.
‘Who the f*** is stealing a $15 steak? What do you even gain?’ one slammed.
However, some shoppers pointed out meat has become one of the most stolen items amid the rising cost of living.
A Coles shopper was doing their grocery shop at the Parabanks store in Salisbury, about 25km north of Adelaide’s CBD, when they noticed select meat products – including scotch fillet, porterhouse and eye fillet – were fitted with security tags
‘Meat is super high theft, I’m not surprised,’ one said.
‘It’s pretty sad living in such a resource-rich country where the quality of life for so many of our communities is such that they’re needing to shoplift meat. Meat. Food to survive on. Australia can do better than this,’ another shared.
A Coles spokeswoman told Daily Mail: ‘While most of our customers do the right thing, unfortunately a small number don’t. Measures like this ultimately help us deliver better availability for our customers looking for these products.
‘We have been working hard to address retail crime and create a safe environment for our team and customers.
‘Along with working closely with police on this issue, we also have a range of safety and security measures in place including CCTV, electronic article surveillance (EAS), security guards and de-escalation training for our team.’
Other customers shared the surprising grocery items they’ve seen security tags on.
‘My local Coles has them on the honey,’ one said.
‘Same at Woolies too. We have security caps on the tins of baby formula and security tags on the shaving razors,’ another revealed.
‘My store has put fake security cameras everywhere throughout the meat section,’ one added.
Coles shoppers have spotted a ‘sad’ detail in the fresh meat aisle as the supermarket giant goes to extreme lengths to stop theft
While another added: ‘I must live In a high theft area because every Coles I’ve gone into since 2023 has had these everywhere.’
Some said they couldn’t wrap their heads around why every cut of meat was fitted with a security tag, to which one person explained: ‘It’s a deterrent.
‘If it stops some people from stealing them that otherwise would have it’s done it’s job… They’re just a deterrent to stop some from committing a crime.’
However, some employees claimed the tags were used to alert staff at self-serve checkouts to ensure meat isn’t scanned as a cheaper item.
‘It’s so the person at the scanner has to remove them, and they are not scanned as something else. It’s not for shoplifting,’ one claimed.
While another explained: ‘The bane of my existence. If you go through self serve you’ll get a ‘please wait for assistance’ as soon as you scan one of these and it’ll say something about staff member to remove meat tag, which is great and all.’
