If someone asked you to guess the most shoplifted item in America, you’d probably say something small. Candy bars. Phone chargers. Maybe those little bottles of liquor near the register. Something you can slip into a pocket and walk out with. That’s the logical guess, and it’s completely wrong.
The most shoplifted item in America is meat. Not a candy bar. Not a tube of lipstick. Premium cuts of steak, specifically filet mignon, Angus ribeyes, and lamb chops. And it’s not even close. Meat accounts for over 20% of all grocery store inventory loss, which the industry calls “shrink.” That makes it the single most stolen food category by a massive margin. The sheer scale of this problem is reshaping how you shop, what you pay, and what your grocery store looks like inside.
Why Steak and Not Snickers
It comes down to simple economics. A pack of gum is worth two bucks. A package of ribeye steaks is worth $20 to $50. Thieves aren’t stealing meat because they’re hungry (well, some are). Most of the time, stolen meat gets resold. It goes to small restaurants, to people in parking lots, to underground resale networks. A stolen $40 pack of steaks can be flipped for $20 cash in minutes. Try doing that with a Snickers bar.
Meat is also surprisingly easy to steal. It’s not behind a counter in most stores. It sits right there on open refrigerated shelves. No security tags, no locked cases (at least not until recently). You grab a few packs, drop them in a bag or tuck them under other items in your cart, and walk out. Stores only catch shoplifters about 2% of the time. That means the average shoplifter gets away with it 98 out of 100 attempts. Those are better odds than Vegas.
This Is Not Petty Theft
Here’s where it gets serious. Most of the meat theft plaguing American grocery stores isn’t random teenagers pocketing a steak. It’s organized retail crime, or ORC. These are coordinated rings with actual structure. They have “boosters” who do the stealing, “cleaners” who remove packaging and repackage the goods, and “fencers” who sell the stolen product through online marketplaces, flea markets, or directly to restaurants and bars.
ORC crews specifically target Walmart, Kroger, and Costco because those stores carry high volumes of premium meat. Some operations near the U.S./Mexico border have been caught stealing bulk frozen meat for smuggling across the border. Investigative reporters have documented heroin-fueled boosters stealing meat daily to sell for quick cash. Rogue restaurants have been caught paying boosters for bulk beef at a fraction of the retail price.
In November 2024, a shoplifting ring in New York was dismantled after stealing nearly $2 million in merchandise from major retailers, reselling items both domestically and internationally. That’s not someone swiping dinner. That’s a business.
The Numbers Are Staggering
U.S. retailers lost an estimated $47.8 billion to retail theft in 2025. Food and grocery retailers alone lost over $4.5 billion. In 2023, there were 1.15 million reported shoplifting cases nationwide, a 15% jump from the year before and the highest rate since 2019. Retailers reported a 93% increase in shoplifting incidents in 2023 compared to 2019.
Here’s the part that should make you mad as a regular shopper. Grocery stores operate on profit margins of 1 to 3 percent. That’s razor thin. When a store loses $1 million worth of stolen steaks, they don’t just absorb that cost. They would need to generate $30 to $50 million in additional sales just to make up for that lost profit. They can’t do that, so instead, prices go up. For everyone. Your groceries cost more because of this.
In 2024, Kroger’s CFO publicly admitted that shrink was eating into the company’s profit margins by 15 to 20 basis points and named fresh meat as a key driver. Target’s CEO said theft pushed shrink past $700 million in 2023, with meat among the hardest hit categories. Walmart admitted in 2023 that retail theft was forcing actual store closures.
Those Wire Cages on Your Steaks? Now You Know Why
If you’ve walked through a Walmart meat aisle recently and seen individual packs of steak locked inside metal wire cages, you’re not imagining things. A TikTok video showing shelves of Angus ribeyes at $20.83 per pack, each locked in a metal wire sleeve, went viral and got millions of views. People were shocked, but this has been building for years.
Each package is locked with a clasp that only a store employee can remove using a special device. If it’s not removed properly, alarms go off at the exit. Some Maine Walmart stores rolled out chicken-wire-style cages on individual meat packages. In New York City, stores were locking up Spam in 2022. Spam. The practice has spread to Target, CVS, and Walgreens for other products too.
In 2023, 67% of retailers added measures to lock or secure merchandise. Between 2019 and 2023, 69% of retailers increased their use of locking cages, cases, or hooks. About 35% of products in high-risk store areas are now behind barriers or require an employee to unlock them.
This creates a terrible shopping experience, and retailers know it. Walgreens’ CEO admitted the anti-theft measures were hurting sales. But what’s the alternative? Keep losing millions?
What Else Gets Stolen (and Why Meat Still Wins)
Meat isn’t the only target, of course. The other most commonly stolen retail products include electronics (smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles), alcohol (especially expensive spirits), designer clothing, and cosmetics. In 2024, a group of thieves stole over 14,000 bottles of alcohol worth $800,000 from ABC stores in Virginia across 3,754 separate incidents over six months. In California, a masked man grabbed 50 iPhones off display at an Apple store, worth nearly $50,000.
But here’s why meat still tops the list in grocery specifically. Electronics have serial numbers, GPS tracking, and activation locks. Alcohol is increasingly kept behind counters or in locked sections. Cosmetics are small-ticket per item. Meat, on the other hand, has no serial numbers, no tracking, and it’s always accessible on open shelves. Plus, it’s perishable, which means it needs to be sold fast, and that actually works in the thief’s favor because buyers know they’re getting fresh product.
23% of Americans Admit They’ve Done It
A recent survey found that 23% of Americans admit to having shoplifted at some point in their lives. One in four juveniles aged 12 to 16 have shoplifted. And 90% of recent offenders cited rising prices as their reason. That last number is telling. When people feel squeezed at the grocery store, some of them start making different choices.
The irony is brutal. Stealing drives prices up for everybody else, which makes more people feel squeezed, which leads to more stealing. It’s a cycle that feeds itself. And stores are stuck in the middle, losing money on both ends.
Stores Are Fighting Back, But It’s Messy
Retailers spent roughly $12 billion on theft prevention in 2024. That includes security cameras, uniformed guards, AI surveillance systems, self-locking cabinets, spider wraps, and keeper tags. In 2023, 75% of retailers added or increased uniformed security officers. 94% of mid-size to large retailers now have security or law enforcement in at least some stores.
California launched a dedicated crackdown on organized retail crime that resulted in 29,060 arrests and $226 million in recovered stolen goods over two years. The FBI released its first ever flash mob shoplifting report in December 2025, documenting 3,321 incidents. More than 40% of those arrested were between 10 and 19 years old.
But stores only recover about 25% of stolen goods. And 64% of retailers report less than half of theft incidents to law enforcement. Many employees are now prohibited by company policy from confronting shoplifters. With 91% of retailers reporting increased aggression during theft events and a 17% increase in threats or violence against employees, you can understand why stores tell workers to just let it happen.
30% of surveyed retailers closed store locations in response to 2023 theft levels. Another 23% planned closures in 2024. When stores close, neighborhoods lose jobs, lose access to fresh food, and the remaining stores raise prices even more to cover the gap.
What This Means for You at the Register
If you’ve wondered why your grocery bill keeps climbing even when you’re buying the same stuff, this is a big piece of the puzzle. In response to rising retail theft, 64% of small businesses have already increased prices. Over half have installed security cameras. 65% of retailers have pulled specific products off the sales floor entirely to avoid theft.
That locked case in the meat aisle isn’t just annoying. It’s a sign that something fundamental has shifted in American retail. The most shoplifted item in the country isn’t small, isn’t cheap, and isn’t hidden in someone’s pocket. It’s sitting in a shopping cart, rolled right out the front door, and resold before the store even notices it’s gone.
Next time you’re standing in the grocery aisle staring at a $22 pack of ribeyes locked behind chicken wire, you’ll know exactly what happened to get us here.
