The idea for the script was based on a true story that John Sullivan had read about a small-time criminal who went into a supermarket and pulled off a scam with the security manager and the store manager.
This episode is the third and final of only three in which the interior of the Trotters' flat is not seen. The other two are "Cash and Curry (1981)" and "Who's a Pretty Boy? (1983)".
The supermarket exteriors and some of the interiors were shot at a real supermarket, Leo's, in Leytonstone in east London, adjacent to the Leytonstone Tube Station. The same space is now occupied by a Matalan store on High Road, Leytonstone.
The subject of the Scarlet Pimpernel was also touched on in Nob and Nobility (1987). Max Harvey guest-starred in Chains (1986) the same year as this episode.
Although they discuss that the manager's wife is expecting him home for his Entrecôte Rioja, she doesn't call the office or alert the police that he is missing.