First it was meat, cheese and coffee.
Now bars of chocolate are being locked away in plastic boxes as retailers and police warn thieves are stealing bars to order.
Tesco, Co-Op, and Sainsbury's are all now using the transparent boxes which customers have to ask staff to open.
The Heart of England Co-Op group, which runs 38 stores in the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire, said chocolate theft cost it £250,000 last year.
It was the group's most stolen product in 2024 and topped only by alcohol in 2025, it said.
Chocolate bars are now being kept in anti-theft boxes as shops warn it's being stolen to order
Chief executive Steve Browne chocolate theft was a 'massive issue'.
He told the BBC: 'In a particular shop, one individual could cost us thousands of pounds in a week,' he said. 'They were coming in... then literally swiping the whole shelf.'
He said a shelf of chocolate could be worth £500 and the group had spent £3m on security and other measures to prevent thefts.
Sainsbury's said it had begun using 'boxes on products which are regularly targeted', with £2.60 bars of Cadbury Dairy Milk locked up in one London branch, according to the BBC.
The Association of Convenience Stores said chocolate was being 'sold on by criminals and is now being targeted more frequently by prolific offenders.
It comes as the price of chocolate continues to rise. The Office for National Statistics said the price of chocolate has risen by over 17% in the year to October 2025 with a 180g bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk now costing around £2.75, and the same size bar of Galaxy costing roughly £3.00.
There have been a number of incidents of chocolate theft in recent months across the country.
In January serial theif David Munday was jailed after he stole a display stand of chocolate - worth £75 - from a shop on Christmas day.
Mundy, 36, pleaded guilty to 31 different offences including stealing the chocolate from Morrisons in Penhill, Swindon.
He was caught on CCTV dragging the display stand out of the store. He was sentenced to 16 months in prison
Last year, West Midlands Police shared CCTV of a prolific thief smashing his way into a shop and walking off with a stash of chocolate bars.
Over eight days, Timothy Little, aged 44, stole items from the same store eight times. He was sentenced to five years and three months in prison.
While in Cambridge last year a man was arrested with a coat full of Cadbury's Creme eggs.
Cambridgeshire Police told the BBC: 'Chocolate is one of a number of high-value items thieves often target, along with products such as alcohol, meat and coffee.
'Retail theft has a real and lasting impact – not just on businesses, but on the staff who have to deal with related abuse and intimidation.'
The British Retail Consortium's annual crime report found there were 5.5 million detected incidents of shop theft last year, and 1,600 daily incidents of violence and abuse against retail workers - the second highest on record.
Sunita Aggarwal,who runs two convenience stores in Leicester and Sheffield, said she had reduced the amount of chocolate on display in her Sheffield store because of increasing theft.
'People are just coming in, and nicking boxes and boxes of chocolate,' she said.
'We know illicit trade is definitely on the up. As retailers, we know it goes on in front of us.'
She said she has installed more than 30 CCTV cameras and uses AI technology to detect thieves, with pictures of known shoplifters at the till.
Her team now only half-fill the shelves to limit losses and have stopped promoting chocolate on easy access end-of-aisle positions.
Fiona Avenal Malone who runs a shop in Tenby, Wales said she was losing £200-£300 a week on chocolate thefts.
'We noticed that we've put out a whole line of chocolate bars, and then all of a sudden there's only one left,' she said.
'Then you go and check the CCTV, and then you see it happening, on the screen, which is really frustrating.'
Paul Cheema, owner of Malcom's convenience stores in Coventry, said: 'Chocolate is the new buzzword for organised crime.
'It was razors, cheese, coffee. Today, these people that are taking stock from convenience stores, from supermarkets, it's taken to order. So chocolate is primetime now.'
The Association of Convenience Stores said shopkeepers needed more help from police and stronger sentences for criminals.
Chief executive James Lowman said: 'Confectionery, like other products commonly stolen from local shops, is being re-sold through illicit markets that help fund wider criminal activity.
'Alongside better police support and effective sentences for repeat offenders, we need action to shut down the networks re-selling stolen goods.'
