Watch: Shop owner and staff confront alleged shoplifter in Hamilton

A violent confrontation outside a fruit and vege shop, filmed by a passerby, was sparked by an alleged shoplifter, the shop's owner says.

Footage sent to the Herald showed a group of people fighting outside Vege King in the Hamilton suburb of Fairfield. During the melee one person swings a cricket bat as the alleged shoplifter bobs and weaves on a busy road.

Police were called at 9.30am yesterday to reports of eight people fighting in Heaphy Tce, where Vege King is.

Details were scant, but no one has been arrested and the police investigation is continuing, a police spokeswoman said.

Vege King owner Harjit Singh said staff confronted an alleged shoplifter outside the shop.

"They asked. nicely, 'empty the pockets'. Then he pushed one of my staff. They were saying 'give us the stuff and walk away, we won't say anything'. The guy started to punch my staff on the face and my staff, we tried to stop him."

As a customer called 111, Singh and his staff - one armed with a cricket bat - began fighting with the man, who Singh described as "young, solid and very strong".

"First we asked nicely, but then we've got no option but for self-defence."

Levi Morgan was driving near the shop when he saw the fight.

The group blocked the road so he got out and began filming.

"About eight of nine of them cleared him out and about three of them were whacking him with sticks. He took a few whacks to the head before I pulled out the camera.

"I just saw the whole flood of people in the middle of the road whacking him so I pulled over."

Singh said the man eventually dropped what he is alleged to have shoplifted - corned beef - and left.

The man did not appear to be injured, and his staff members also escaped serious injury, he said.

One suffered a black eye, another a grazed knee.

A day on, Singh has no regrets about what happened outside the shop he has owned for 20 years.

"If they harm my staff, I won't sit back and do nothing."