As the cost of living crisis continues, supermarkets are now taking drastic measures to protect their goods from theft.
Supermarkets around the UK have reportedly been spotted keeping the most unlikely of foods under lock and key.
It comes as Lurpak, cheese and meat have seen prices soar in recent days with some tubs of butter hitting the £9 mark.
Read more: How much does Lurpak cost in Tesco and Sainsbury's as tubs hit £9
Brits have been taking to social media as a result to share their shock at the prices being seen and protective measures in place.
And there's been further disbelief after Aldi was spotted adding security tags and equipment to blocks of cheese.
One man spotted his local Aldi store keeping £3.99 blocks of cheddar under lock and key, similar to what you would find on some steaks and alcohol.
Posting a picture to Twitter, it showed the cheese, while a second picture showed an £8 steak from Co-op inside a "GPS-protected" security box.
In both cases, a member of store staff have to remove the equipment before the customer can leave, otherwise an alarm will be set off.
On social media, the image was met with confusion and despair.
Dr Sinéad Furey, a food poverty expert, this week told The Sun that “stealing to eat” is “proof we need policy solutions so resorting to crime does not become a mainstream means of securing basic essentials”.
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A spokesperson for Co-op this week publicly confirmed that a number of "higher-value" goods would be kept under lock and key.
They said: “Co-op has been involved in a small scale trial of new packaging for higher-value products such as meat for several years, with the additional security providing a further deterrent if a store locally experiences shoplifting issues."
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