Walmart Locks Up Meat in Anti-Theft Bags in California Amid Shoplifting Surge

Walmart reportedly has a startling answer for shoppers at a California store who want to know: “Where’s the beef?”

It’s locked up in anti-theft wire bags.

Online influencer Tony Bartleson — aka The MeadDad — posted a video clip on social media that shows a packaged “cowboy ribeye steak” and a three-pound tube of lean ground beef inside flexible wire bags sealed with what appear to be anti-theft devices.

“There it is,” Bartleson said while holding up the steak. “Welcome to California.”

Other, apparently less-expensive meats without the wire bags around them were visible on other grab-and-go refrigerated shelves.

Bartleson — whose website describes him as a “Journeyman butcher turned stay-at-home dad”— didn’t say where the store was located, and a Walmart spokesperson told The Independent on Sunday that it couldn’t comment without that information.

Walmart’s reported attempt to deter meat thieves follows a recent surge in beef prices that pushed up the cost to consumers by 14.8 percent since last year, with seemingly no end in sight.

It also comes as the Golden State has been struggling with a plague of rampant shoplifting and “smash-and-grab” thefts since the COVID-19 pandemic, leading lawmakers to pass a landmark package of anti-crime measures that went into effect last year.

In a statement to The U.S. Sun, which reported on the video Friday, Bartelson said, “Seeing basic food items locked behind cages is sad.”

“My hope is that we can get to a point where measures like this aren’t necessary anymore — where people don’t have to steal just to eat, stores don’t have to lock up food, and everyone has reliable access to the necessities they need,” he added.

Walmart’s reported safeguarding of its meat came just days after CBS News reported that California’s Bay Area Grocery Outlet chain had installed facial recognition technology at some of its stores to combat theft.

Signs posted on the front doors warn shoppers that their faces will be scanned by software, with employees alerted if anyone on a list of suspected shoplifters enters the stores, CBS News said.

Recent FBI statistics show shoplifting in the state is now at a record high that’s almost 50 percent greater than before the pandemic, according to CBS News.

Last week, a shoplifting suspect was killed and two San Francisco cops trying to detain him were injured when they were all hit by a vehicle while scuffling outside a Trader Joe’s supermarket.

Major chains, including Home Depot and Lowe’s, have also started using automated license plate readers outside some stores to crack down on thieves.