Desperate families are stealing food from shops as the recession drives people to crime.

Frozen food, bread and meat are being snatched from the shelves, prompting fears a credit crunch crimewave is already hitting Sussex.

At the end of 2008 robberies in the county were up nearly a quarter on the year before, with burglaries also on the rise.

The figures have prompted calls for more police on the streets and a plan to deal with a rise in stealing as the economy worsens.

The most shocking examples in recent weeks have come from Lewes, where police have seen a 40% rise in shoplifting compared with last year.

Officers reported many of the culprits are simply people stealing food to feed their families.

Police are now planning an emergency meeting with shopkeepers next month to find ways to nip the problem in the bud.

Inspector Jon Greetham said: “Part of the rise is due to better reporting of crime by the shops, but it appears a lot of it is due to economic trends in that it is foodstuffs that are going missing.”

This month Worthing had twice its average monthly number of burglaries in a single weekend.

Brighton and Hove has seen a spate of burglaries of cigarettes and alcohol on Co-op stores, while shops across the county have been hit by ram raids.

In total crime fell last year by 9%.

Since 2003 burglary is down by half and robbery has fallen by a third.

But in the last three months of 2008 robberies went up by 23% and burglaries by 4% compared with the same period in 2007.

The figures led to calls for police to prepare for more increases as the recession takes hold and people lose their jobs.

David Lepper, Labour MP for Brighton Pavilion, pledged to raise the effect of the credit crunch on crime at a meeting with Sussex Police Chief Constable Martin Richards, next week.

He said: “What Sussex Police have always said is that the majority of burglaries in our area, at least in Brighton and Hove, are drug-related.

“They have had a long-term strategy of tackling it on that basis and in doing that we have seen a reasonable reduction in burglaries over the years.

“At the moment the figures in Sussex are reasonably stable. But there has always been a link between economic downturn and crime."