Rise in shoplifting and theft in UK finds nine in 10 retailers in rural areas targeted

Nine in 10 retailers based in rural locations have been victims of crime in the past 12 months, according to research, underlining the widespread impact of the rise in shoplifting and theft even in more remote parts of the UK.Rural retailers include farm shops as well as stores selling machinery and other equipment. The financial cost of crime for each affected retailer was on average £83,000 during the past year, according to a survey carried out by the commercial insurer NFU Mutual. Meanwhile, one in 20 victims said crime had cost them more than half a million pounds.Retailers based in inner cities reported experiencing the highest level of crime, with 94% suffering an incident over the past year. However, this was followed closely by retailers in urban areas (91%) and in rural locations (91%).John Harris of the Broadditch farm shop in Kent says a break-in and theft ‘felt personal, like a gut punch’. Photograph: John HarrisAlmost a quarter of rural retailers surveyed by NFU Mutual had suffered on more than six occasions, equivalent to an incident taking place every other month.Meanwhile, only 5% of rural retailers who had fallen victim to crime over the past year only suffered one incident.John Harris, a farmer and owner of Broadditch farm shop near Gravesend in Kent, is one of this small minority of business owners. Despite this, the break-in and theft at the farm shop last Easter have left a lasting impact.“It felt personal, like a gut punch. It was a weird, horrible feeling,” said Harris, who has run the farm shop with his brother Mark since 1990, when they began selling homegrown fruit and vegetables and other produce from a building formerly used for cleaning, sorting and packing apples.The farm shop was broken into late at night over the Easter weekend, when the perpetrator forced open a skylight. They then smashed through inner glass doors, before pushing the shop’s safe down a flight of stairs and wheeling it out of the building.“We normally don’t leave money in the shop, but because of the way the weekend fell, there was more in the safe than normal,” Harris said.The stolen safe contained £5,000 of takings, while the perpetrator also made off with two donation pots for the local hospice. Despite having CCTV inside the shop, the Harrises only discovered what had happened the following day. A man was subsequently charged with the crime, but the case has not yet been heard in court.The research comes amid warnings from retailers that the rise in shoplifting in recent years has been driven by criminal gangs systematically targeting shops. A separate study from the British Retail Consortium reported 5.5m incidents of shoplifting in 2025, costing the industry an estimated £400m.The Broadditch farm shop was broken into late at night over the Easter weekend. Photograph: John HarrisThe government’s crime and policing bill, which passed into law at the end of April, created a stand-alone offence for assaulting a retail worker and removed the £200 threshold for “low-level” theft, which has a maximum six-month custodial sentence.Just under half (46%) of the 150 rural retailers surveyed said staff had been verbally abused during the past 12 months, while a quarter reported that members of staff had been physically assaulted.More than three-quarters (77%) of those surveyed said they believed crime had increased in the UK over the last 12 months.“We know first-hand the pain and disruption criminals cause our rural communities and retailers with these callous acts,” said Zoe Knight, the head of commercial at NFU Mutual.“Farm shops are often family-run operations and embedded into the local communities. They have sadly been targeted in the past – and continue to be so – due to their remote locations, so it is vital that owners take all necessary and appropriative preventative steps to try to deter thieves.”Since last year’s break-in, the Harrises have increased security measures at their farm shop.“We have beefed up security with locks and an alarm,” Harris said. “There has always been petty theft on farmyards of things like diesel and quad bikes, but now it seems like things are being targeted and stolen to order.”