Shop workers are being driven away by "unprecedented" violence including knife attacks and gun threats, a summit on the retail crime crisis heard.
Co-Op chief Chris Chandler said staff have been dragged across the floor by their hair, confronted in car parks with knives and hammers and even threatened with firearms. It comes as research showed that the scale of retail crime is now adding 10p to the average transaction paid by law-abiding customers.
Mr Chandler, head of store support in the mid-counties, said: "There's been an unprecedented level of attacks against our frontline colleagues. The risk and fear of crime in our stores has never been higher.
"We're seeing colleagues leave and they're saying the reason they're leaving is crime and the risks they face." He went on: "We're talking about spitting, we're talking about verbal abuse, we're talking about physical violence. I had one of my colleagues dragged across the shop floor by their hair, we've had colleagues attacked in car parks, we've had colleagues attacked with hammers, knives, threatened by guns."
Latest figures from the Association of Convenience stores show that shoppers have to pay a 10p "crime tax" due to soaring thefts. Retailers told the Cooperative Party’s Retail Crime Summit in London that only a fraction of crimes actually get reported because companies do not think police will act.
Research by trade union Usdaw found 18% of shop workers suffered a violent attack last year - up from 8% in 2022. Almost half had been threatened.
Policing Minister Dame Diana Johnson said: "This is the shocking reality of being a shopworker in 21st century Britain. Just last week I met with a shop worker in my own constituency who sent me CCTV footage of him being punched 50 times by a customer he was trying to help."
She pointed to Labour's pledge to create a specific offence for assaulting a retail worker, and scrapping a Tory rule that means thefts under £200 are less likely to be pursued.
Dame Diana said: "I say to retail workers, we will back you and we will protect you. There is no place for anyone who abuses shopworkers, and we are changing the law to come after you."