By Plasteurope.com correspondent

A huge rise in shoplifting activity across England and Wales has prompted Austrian packaging manufacturer Coveris (Vienna; www.coveris.com) to increase production of its SourceTag loss-prevention security labels. Coveris said it was responding to soaring demand from retailers for its SourceTag products, with demand up 60% year-on-year, by increasing production.

According to the Office for National Statistics, which regularly publishes a variety of data about the UK, during the year ended March 2024 police recorded 443,995 incidents of shoplifting in England and Wales, a 30% increase on 2023 and reportedly the highest level since records began in 2003. Meanwhile, the British Retail Consortium (London, www.brc.org.uk) reported that cases of shoplifting were running at around 45,000 a day, with an annual cost to the retail sector of GBP 1.8 bn (EUR 2.13 bn).

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The firm said its SourceTag labels use radio frequency or acoustic magnetic tags to provide a security label that works with existing electronic article surveillance antenna systems instore. The tags are applied during the label manufacturing process “to create a covert security solution, the need for secondary SKUs and instore application”. Coveris added that the tags deactivated at the point of sale, making self-checkout – where an estimated 80% of sales now take place – more secure, but also easier.

The firm said it was investing in more R&D to boost production, security formats, and sustainable impact. Nigel Hewitt, sales director of the company’s paper division, said, “Compared to secondary tagging, our current SourceTag labels offer a more sustainable solution as well as reducing SKUs, cost, process, and time.”