The health and wellbeing chain has deployed covert investigators in certain locations on the high street as part of efforts to tackle retail theft.

The company has engaged plainclothes private investigators to patrol branches experiencing elevated crime rates.

Outlets can be found in Friars Walk in Newport, at the Tesco Spytty site and in Cwmbran, as well as in Abergavenny, Caerphilly and Blackwood.

Group chief executive Anthony Houghton expressed concern about conditions on the nation’s shopping streets, describing the current situation as unacceptable. He acknowledged to The Times that introducing these measures was regrettable but necessary.

Among the items most commonly targeted by thieves are manuka honey alongside sports nutrition goods such as protein supplements and creatine-based products.

The business has also partnered with Auror, a retail crime intelligence company, to provide data identifying which branches face the greatest risk.

In its most recent annual report, Holland & Barrett documented an increase in incidents involving staff members, prompting the introduction of body-worn cameras for all employees.

Lucy Whing, a crime policy specialist at the trade organisation British Retail Consortium, indicated that retailers needed to take additional steps to address the theft problem. She noted that organised criminal groups and persistent offenders were methodically moving from one outlet to the next, and she emphasised that improved information sharing combined with rigorous enforcement by retailers would be essential to reducing retail crime.

The company declined to provide any additional remarks.

Holland & Barrett is not the sole retailer introducing measures against shoplifting. Earlier this year, Greggs chose to withdraw display cabinets from several of its London branches that had been particularly affected by thieves.

This followed data released in March indicating that shop theft had risen by approximately 20 percent compared with the same period the previous year across England and Wales.

Meanwhile, Co-op equipped certain products including Cumberland sausages with GPS tracking devices, and the company reported that this approach had contributed to a 21 percent reduction in overall retail crime across its outlets.