UK: Report shoplifters, earn £1 reward, Iceland tells customers

British supermarket chain Iceland has introduced a new initiative to curb shoplifting by offering customers a £1 reward for reporting incidents of theft.

The company’s executive chairman, Richard Walker, explained that customers who alert staff to a theft in progress will have £1 credited to their Iceland Bonus Card. 

He noted that shoplifting costs the retailer about £20 million annually, a figure he said affects its ability to cut prices and improve staff wages.

Iceland clarified that shoplifters do not have to be apprehended for a customer to receive the reward, but the incident must be reported and verified. 

“We’re encouraging our loyal customers to help sound the alarm, and if they do help to catch a shoplifter, we’ll top up their Bonus Card to spend in store,” Walker said in a statement. He first disclosed the plan during an appearance on Channel 5 News on Thursday.

“Some people see this as a victimless crime, it is not. It’s a cost to the business, to the hours we pay our colleagues, and it involves intimidation and violence,” he added. 

According to him, involving customers in crime prevention could help reduce prices. “We’d like customers to help us lower our prices even more by pointing out shoplifters,” Walker said.

The supermarket stressed that customers should not confront suspected shoplifters but instead report them to the nearest staff member with a detailed description.

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The move comes amid a sharp increase in retail theft across England and Wales. Nearly nine in ten pharmacies have also reported a rise in shoplifting and aggression towards staff over the past year. 

Victims minister Alex Davies-Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that shoplifting had “got out of hand” in the UK. When asked about the display of known offenders’ images in shop windows, she said: “It’s on all of us to be aware of what is going on in our local communities.”

According to the BBC, data from the Office for National Statistics shows police recorded 530,643 shoplifting offences in the year to March 2025, up 20% from 444,022 the previous year, the highest level since records began in 2002-03.

In response, the government has promised to strengthen neighbourhood policing, pledging thousands of additional officers on patrol by spring 2026.

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