Is that a sausage in your pocket? Shoplifters get creative as meat prices rise

Shocking CCTV footage has exposed the brazen ways shoplifters are taking meat right off the shelves - and it might leave a bad taste in your mouth.

Melbourne supermarket owner David Williamson said his establishment had been run by his family for 40 years.

With meat prices continuing to rise, shoplifters were targeting one of the store's most valuable commodities - though their chosen method of conveyance is not the most hygienic.

"Most of the people we catch are shoving it down their pants," Mr Williamson told A Current Affair.

"Meat's expensive and prices are going up every day, so it's a target."

CCTV also shows people hiding meat products inside jackets, handbags and even in prams.

Mr Williamson said shoplifting cost him about $100,000 a year.

Shoplifters are costing supermarkets up to $3 billion a year, a loss that is pushed on to consumers.

However, a recent proposal would aim to cut shoplifting down by taxing the welfare payments of perpetrators.

Foodworks owner Bailey Porter said the penalties shoplifters did receive often amounted to a slap on the wrist, while the stores faced a costly road to compensation.

South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon has proposed a controversial measure - deducting the shoplifting cost from shoplifters' welfare benefits to repay owners directly.

At the moment, he said, "every consumer ultimately ends up paying".

Senator Xenophon confirmed to A Current Affair that his party would be campaigning for these measures in the upcoming South Australian election.