The Retail Drinks Industry Summit is taking place in Sydney this week, with one of the sessions dedicated to giving retailers insights and knowledge on how to tackle the growing problem of retail crime.
The session will be hosted by Kary Petersen, the Head of Policy and Advocacy at Retail Drinks Australia, and will also feature Neil Redfern Managing Director of Redfern Retail Risk, Senior Sergeant Damen James of NSW Police, Andrew Sayers, the National Profit Protection Manager at Coles Liquor and Andrew McKay Associate Director at Red Bottle.
Speaking to The Shout about the panel discussion, Petersen said: “Crimes are rising across the country and are reaching pre-Covid levels. We’re witnessing more brazen crimes, aggressive behaviour is a significant problem, as is reoffending.
“The Summit is really a chance for all the retail liquor industry to come together to understand those issues and to hear from experts on what can be done about it.”
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Redfern added: “This is a really valuable conversation to be having at the moment, all regions and states across Australia, and the broader retail industry is seeing an increase in the impacts of retail crime.
“Retail crime is not limited to shoplifting offences, there are well-organised retail crime groups that are specifically targeting the liquor industry due to the desirability and the value of the merchandise that is carries by these stores. As a result of that it does make retail stores a lucrative target as well.
“In addition there are issues such as customer aggression and anti-social behaviour and then to the more serious end armed robberies and other aggravated robbery offences. There are other issues as well such as ‘steaming’ where a large number of people come into a store en-masse in order to overwhelm workers in the store and steal a large amount of property.
“These are all serious considerations for the liquor industry and its retail environment, and as a result of that we have spent a lot of time developing comprehensive toolkits, as part of the ‘Safe to Serve’ initiatives developed by Retail Drinks Australia.”
The Retail Drinks Industry Summit will look in detail at this, and other issues facing the retail liquor sector at the moment, and offer practical solutions to help combat the problem.
In addition, attendees will also hear from Jarna McLean, Circana’s Director, Health & Lifestyle who will talk about a new trend influencing purchasing decisions, plus there is the opportunity to win a prize valued at $13,000 from the Brian Cummins Group.
