“GEMEINSAM.SICHER (TOGETHER.SAFE), the initiative of the Ministry of the Interior for crime prevention, starts before something happens. I am grateful that we are now also working together more closely with the REWE Group and are jointly dealing with issues such as shoplifting, cybercrime or telephone fraud and taking measures to be able to prevent crime before it happens,” said Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner on the occasion of the signing of the cooperation agreement. “We are pleased to continue and expand our cooperation with the Federal Ministry of the Interior in order to make our markets even safer - for our employees as well as for our customers. I am very optimistic that the project will be as successful throughout Austria as it has already been in Vienna,” Robert Nagele, BILLA Executive Board member, is convinced.
The successful project GEMEINSAM.SICHER for the prevention of violence is now being implemented throughout Austria
In the future, special attention will be paid to how employees of REWE Group in Austria (BILLA, BILLA PLUS, PENNY and BIPA) deal with challenging situations such as aggressive customer behaviour or assaults. Training already carried out in the past by the Vienna Provincial Police Headquarters has shown that the perception of safety and the ability to behave correctly in difficult situations improve significantly. Since the start of the cooperation in Vienna, there have been numerous successes and cooperations in the Viennese districts. Attacks on staff have been reduced many times over in Vienna.
“We want to increase the sense of security of all our employees as well as our customers and with this showcase project we also want to contribute nationwide to ensuring that our teams in the stores are well prepared even for difficult situations” said Raz Manne, Head of Corporate Security at REWE Group in Austria.
“The cooperation with REWE shows once again how important the prevention work of the police officers is in Austria. Identifying possible problems together in advance and working on solutions with the partners – that is the way of GEMEINSAM.SICHER – and it is a good way,” the Deputy Director of the Federal Criminal Police Office and Head of the initiative Gemeinsam.Sicher, Manuel Scherscher, is also convinced.
With more than 2,600 stores of its trading companies BILLA, PENNY, BIPA and ADEG as well as the online shops of BILLA and BIPA, REWE International AG is a leading local supplier in food and drugstore retailing in Austria. With around 45,300 employees, the company is also one of the largest employers in the country.
