CCTV footage shows the shocking moment a woman allegedly stole £200 worth of pistachios from a local health food shop amid the 'Dubai-style chocolate' trend.

Shopkeeper Damian Tapper, 44, who has operated Out Of This World, in Leeds, West Yorks., for 21 years, says he gets "weekly shoplifters"."

The problem got so bad it led to him completely redesigning his store to have lower shelves to increase visibility.

But, he was left shocked when he saw an alleged thief brazenly empty a shelf full of pistachios in to her bag before walking out without paying.

Damian said: "We realised the whole shelf had been cleared, but only of pistachio nuts – often we do get professional shoplifters, but they'll just clear the whole shelf into their bag."

"But she specifically just targeted every single packet of pistachio nuts off of the shelf, but left all of the other nuts – which is quite unusual."

"We restocked the shelf, and within another couple of days she'd come back and done exactly the same thing, and cleared the other shelf of our own brand pistachio nuts."

Damian blames the viral trend of Asian-style desserts and Dubai-style chocolate, both of which include pistachios, for the thief's choice.

He said: "We're sort of guessing it's because there's such a viral trend for pistachios at the moment, partly because of Dubai chocolate and also the popularity of Asian-style desserts at the moment."

"We're guessing professional shoplifters know there's a market for when there's something they can sell quickly."

"We've had it in the past when certain things have been trending, say protein powder or almond milk, we've had all that stolen. It just seems to be that they know they can sell it on quickly."

"I don't think she's sat at home making pistachio cakes." "

Now, shop owner, worried word will spread that his shop is an easy target, has decided to make footage of the incident public to deter thieves.

The footage has already received over 10,000 views on the shop's Instagram page.

Damian said: "Once something like this happens it tends to escalate, because a lot of the shoplifters know each other, and the word spreads that you're an easy target."

"That's why we're wanting to do this publicly, so it shows them we're not an easy target."

West Yorkshire Police has confirmed an alleged theft was reported between 3.20pm on July 30 and 3pm on August 7.