Chocolate bars worth as little as £1.25 have been put in security boxes to prevent shoplifting in Tesco.

Daily Milk, Galaxy and Milkybars have been locked away in the plastic containers.

The boxes have stickers on them saying 'Ask the staff'.

Customers cannot just take a bar off the shelves, supermarket workers have to get one for them.

They are £1.25 for Tesco Clubcard holders or £1.55 without.

The Galaxy bars are £1.35 and the Daily Milk are £2 with a Clubcard or £2.25 without.

They were spotted at a Tesco store in Newham, east London - where there are 16 stores across the borough.

Former police officer Norman Brennan fumed: 'Tesco now put chocolate bars behind plastic security barriers.

'Shoplifting is so out-of-control that the cost of loss in the past year is two billion pounds.'

The ex-British Transport Police officer said: 'And it will go up and up and up.'

Sharon Rae McGilvray joked: 'Funny how they haven't done it with fruit and veg.'

Luke Senior said: 'How long before shops are forced revert to the old style with shop assistants, human or robotic.

'Having to retrieve everything for customers like either Argos or a giant vending machine?'

Duncan Gray said: 'At £2 they should be locked in a vault in the basement.'

Another added: 'As a Londoner since birth, I can confirm that this place is going to the dumps.'

One said: 'This is a whole another level of low.'

It follows a rise in thefts from shops amid high inflation during the cost-of-living-crisis.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has made shoplifting an issue during next month's general election claiming the Conservative's anti-crime policies were in effect a 'shoplifter's charter'. 

Under current plans, shoplifting of goods worth less than £200 will not ordinarily result in a police investigation. 

Addressing retail union Usdaw's annual conference in Blackpool, Sir Keir said: 'I am putting shoplifters on notice. You might get away with it under this weak Tory Government.

'But if Labour takes power, we won’t stand by while crime takes over our streets.

'We’ll put 13,000 extra neighbourhood police on the beat, tackling crime on your streets.

'We’ll scrap the Shoplifter’s Charter – the £200 rule that stops the police investigating theft in your workplace.

'And we will legislate to make sure assaulting and abusing shopworkers is a standalone criminal offence because you deserve to feel safe at work.'

Recent data showed shoplifting figures are the highest in the past 20 years. 

Of the 408,690 police-recorded shoplifting offences in England and Wales in 2023 that were assigned an outcome, 16 per cent (65,521) were charged or summonsed while 58 per cent (238,794) of the investigations were closed with no suspect identified.  This compares with 15 per cent and 55 per cent respectively in 2022.

Tesco has been approached for comment.