Thread: A Cheesy heist!

The Grate Cheese Robbery!

Why cheese theft is on the rise




Food-related crimes – which include smuggling, counterfeiting, and out-and-out theft – cost the global food industry between US $30 to 50 billion a year (£23-£38 billion), according to the World Trade Organisation. These range from hijackings of freight lorries delivering food to warehouses to the theft of 24 live lobsters from a storage pen in Scotland.
But a number of these food crimes have also targeted the cheese industry – and in particular luxury cheese.
Last year, in the run-up to Christmas, around £50,000 worth of cheese was stolen from a trailer in a service station on the M5 near Worcester. The problem isn't a new one - as far back as 1998, thieves broke into a storeroom and took nine tonnes of cheddar from a family-run farm in Somerset.
It’s happening elsewhere in Europe, too: in 2016, criminals made off with £80,000 of Parmigiano Reggiano from a warehouse in northern Italy. This particular type of parmesan, which requires at least a year to mature, is created by following a process that has been in place, with little modification, for almost 1,000 years. At the time of the heist, Italy’s Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium told CBS news that about $7 million (£5.4m) worth of cheese had been stolen in a two-year period.

The Neal'''s Yard heist: Why luxury cheese is being targeted by criminals - BBC News