Large amounts of refrigerated stock ruined in Wigan supermarket raid

And the intruder is believed to have removed roof panels of the Lidl outlet in Standish before lowering himself down onto the shop floor “Mission Impossible-style”.

At some point during the break-in, which took place during the early hours of Thursday January 4, the fridges were switched off, probably while an attempt was being made to disable the alarm.

So when staff came in later after the raid was reported to police, much of the refrigerated food was spoilt and had to be thrown away.

The Preston Road premises were closed for much of Thursday as officers conducted investigations and repairs were carried out.

Eventually customers were let back in but the fridges were all empty, awaiting a re-stock.

A source said: “Whether the burglar intended to or it was an accident, a real problem was caused by the fridges being switched off to disable the alarm. Hundreds of pounds worth of food was ruined by that power outage.

"It also turned out that the person responsible somehow got up on the roof of the store, removed some panels and got down that way. It was like Mission Impossible.”

Police later confirmed that they had been called to Standish Lidl at 3.20am on Thursday and that subsequently a man in his 30s had been arrested on suspicion of burglary.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to ring police on 101 or the freephone Crimestoppers line anonymously on 0800 555111.