Why are thieves stealing Tide laundry detergent in Connecticut? [View all]

[tenderfoot]

OXFORD — The video opens with what appears to be a normal scene outside a grocery store: Two people loading up the trunk of an SUV with items from their shopping cart.

The footage continued as the pair quickly threw item after item into the car, parked in the fire lane at the store’s entrance. One of the carts and the back of the SUV was nearly filled with large bottles of Tide laundry detergent. The person shooting the video then turned to reveal a minivan also parked in the fire lane with two other people filling its trunk with what appears to be paper towels and even more bottles of Tide.

The video was capturing what police have described as a brazen daytime shoplifting incident.

“I honestly thought it was a joke,” Wayne Pesch, president of the Connecticut Food Association, a group that represents grocers in the state, said about the video.

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While several Connecticut police departments said they haven’t seen large-scale thefts of laundry detergent, Tide-brand detergent, in particular, has emerged as a favorite among thieves in recent years, according to the Associated Press.

That’s for a number of reasons — it’s a commodity everyone needs, it’s a popular well-known brand, it doesn’t spoil and the big bottles retail for around $20.

Pesch noted thieves could probably offload the stolen detergent for around $10 a bottle.

The theft in Oxford points to a larger issue of theft for food retailers, Pesch said, who he said operate on thin margins. Some retailers have announced store closures, citing shoplifting and “organized retail crime.”

https://www.ctinsider.com/news/article/Why-are-thieves-stealing-Tide-laundry-detergent-16616218.php