In a viral TikTok video, a Walmart customer shared their confusion at seeing steaks in the meat aisle literally locked up.
In the clip, Nia (@niaghisays) films from inside her local Walmart’s meat section.
“Tell me why the f*ck the steaks are locked up?” she asks.
She turns the camera around for viewers to see that there is some kind of metal packaging with a woven pattern, similar to that of a fence, wrapped around the packaging.
“Are we stealing steaks now? Is that what’s going on?” Nia questions.
One commenter confirmed that some people do in fact steal steaks.
“I worked at a grocery store in high school and people would hide steaks in between cases of pop in their cart,” the person shared.
“Yeah my ex used to make me sit in the car when we would get groceries only to find out he was stealing our dinner from Walmart,” another wrote.
And apparently, steaks aren’t the only protein people take.
“Dude I work for walmart and found 3 empty boxes of crab,” an alleged worker shared.
The video has garnered nearly 200,000 views and over 360 comments as of Thursday morning.
@niaghisays Walmart what is going on pls #walmart #funny #fyp #fypage ♬ original sound – Nia
“Walmart what is going on pls,” the caption read.
Locking items is not a new phenomenon, and more stores have come under fire in the last few years for locking everything from food to baby formula to Black hair care products—the latter of which the chain committed to stop doing given the racist implication.
The Daily Dot has reported on several shoppers who’ve noticed the rise in stores’ anti-theft measures and have taken to social media to call them out.
Similar to Nia, one shopper also noticed that ribeye steaks at their Florida Walmart were chained and tagged. Another said having everything in Target’s beauty section locked up discouraged them from shopping there, while a third called out CVS Pharmacy for locking up home essentials like clothing detergent.
According to a report from the National Retail Federation, the problem that causes such loss prevention measures isn’t individual shoplifters but organized retail crime. The federation defines this as theft in large quantities for resale, occasionally participating in other forms of fraud such as the use of stolen credit cards, changing bar codes, or returning stolen merchandise.
The Daily Dot reached out to Nia for comment via Instagram direct message and to Walmart via email.
