Packaged meat now a hot commodity

With meat prices sky high, steaks are flying off the shelves and straight out the door.

Alberta grocers are struggling to keep up with a new styleof shoplifting where thieves loadcartswith hundreds of dollars worth of meat, then bolt.

Once outside the store, thecontraband is loaded into a getaway car.

"Sometimes they actually throw the whole cart and everything into the back of the van or back of atruck and then they leave," said Graham Getz, general manager of the St. PaulCo-opgrocery store.

Getz saidthere have been four major thefts at his store in the last six weeks.

Each time thievesmade off with about $500 in goods, mostlymeat products, though occasionallyother high-ticket items such as cheese.

"It's frustratingbecause we're trying to merchandise our store so it can be attractive to all of our really goodcustomers," Getz said.

The scale of themeat heists pushed the St. Paul and District Chamber of Commerce to call anemergency meeting for Tuesday.

Together with St. Paul RCMP, they hope to develop strategies to prevent the thefts.

'Is this organized?'

"The question is: Is this organized?" askedexecutive directorLinda Sallstrom. "Ithink that is the unique aspect of this. I have never heard of an organized group that is targetingfood specifically."

The recent spike in theft isn't isolated to St. Paul grocery stores. Edmonton police say they fieldone or two calls about meat theft every week.

"You have people loading it into a grocery shopping cart looking quite normal like every otherclient and customer in the grocery store, and then all of a sudden they get near the exit door andthey just make a mad dash to get out," said Sgt. Steve Sharpe, with EPS.

"Certainly there is always a market out there for meat," he said, adding that small scale meatthefts likely go unnoticed and unreported.

Sharpe saidthe meat may even beresold on a blackmarket.

"The concern that we have is once it's stolen from a store, certainly it can be broken down andseparated into parts and once it's gone it's really hard to track," he said.

There's also no way of knowing how meat has been handled, once stolen. That's why herecommends buying from trusted retailers to avoid contaminated or unsafe products.

High meat prices believed to be behind the thefts are likely to last, especially for beef.

Alberta'sbeef producers are only now starting to catch up with demand, according to Rich Smith, executive directorof Alberta Beef Producers.

"Supply doesn't change very quickly in our industry," he said.

When a meat shortage causesprices to rise, it can take up to three years for producers to catch up asthat's how longranchers need to raise enough cattle to meet a higher demand, he said.

"Our cattle herd has been declining for quite a few years, so we've been expecting the process ofexpansion to start," Smith said.

"It will take a couple of years to really significantly increase supply sowe're not expecting beef prices to fall significantly over that time."