Grate U.K. cheese heist of 2024 sees con artists make off with $540K in cheddar
London-based retailer Neal’s Yard Dairy says it's the victim of 'a sophisticated fraud'
That's a lot of cheddar.
A U.K.-based artisan cheese distributor, wholesaler, and retailer says it's been "the victim of a sophisticated fraud" after con artists posing as a retailer for a French wholesale distributor made off with more than $540K Cdn (£300,000) in clothbound, award-winning cheddar.
In a statement posted Oct. 22, Neal Yard's Dairy says it only realized the fraud after the cheese had been delivered. In all, 950 wheels of cheese weighing 22 tonnes were stolen, the statement continued, including Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar.
"Between them, these cheeses have won numerous awards and are amongst the most sought-after artisan cheeses in the U.K.," the statement continued.
"The high monetary value of these cheeses likely made them a particular target for the thieves."
Local and international authorities are searching for the culprits. Neal's Yard Dairy added that it still paid the three artisan cheese-makers in full.
Still, Tom Calver, a director of Westcombe Dairy, said they were "devastated" by the fraud. Westcombe cheddar is aged 12 to 18 months and made using unpasteurized milk.
"The process of making that cheese started almost three years ago when we planted seeds for the animals' feed in the ground," Calver said in the statement
"The amount of work that's gone into nurturing the cows, emphasizing best farming practice, and transforming the milk one batch at a time to produce the best possible cheese is beyond estimation. And for that to be stolen … it's absolutely terrible."
In an Instagram video, British chef Jamie Oliver urged his 11 million followers to be on the lookout for "lorry loads of very posh cheese."
"Cheese enthusiasts are advised to be wary of suspiciously large quantities of premium cheddar on the black market," he wrote alongside the video posted last weekend.
"Remember, if the deal seems too gouda to be true, it probably is! Let's find these cheese stealers."
You cheddar believe cheese heists are common
Call it the Grate Cheese Heist of 2024, because it's far from the first. In fact, according to the U.K.'s Centre for Retail Research, in the earlier 2000s, cheese was the most-stolen product in the U.K. and Europe.
Even earlier this year, in July, a court ruled that a German police officer who was fired for stealing cheddar cheese from an overturned truck while attending a traffic accident couldn't get his job back. Reuters reports that the police officer had been called to secure the scene, but instead ordered a rescue worker to hand him nine 20-kilogram packages of cheese, which were worth around $834 (554 euros) in total.
In 2022, thieves stole 161 wheels of cheese worth about $32,000 from a Dutch cheese farmer, according to the New York Times. Dairy farms in the Netherlands are frequently targeted, with the website Dutch News reporting in 2016 that 8,500 kilograms of Dutch cheese was stolen in the previous year, worth about $135,000.
Italy is also often a target for Parmigiano-Reggiano thieves. In 2016, CBS reported that about $7 million US worth of the hard Italian cheese had been stolen in the past two years.
Some cheese-makers even keep their wares in climate-controlled bank vaults armed with security systems, according to Euro News, which called the Parmigiano-Reggiano "edible gold" because each round of cheese is worth up to about $600 Cdn.
The U.S. isn't immune, with 20,000 pounds of fresh Wisconsin cheese worth about $64,000 nabbed by "cheese bandits" in 2016. And in Canada, thieves made off with $187,000 worth of cheese from Saputo Dairy Products in Tavistock, Ont., in 2019.
And you butter believe that's not all (we apologize. we had to). Guelph, Ont., has seen a spate of butter thefts. Guelph police say there have been seven 'large-scale' butter thefts over the last 10 months, including two in October. The most recent cases resulted in losses of more than $900 each.
Butter worth $800 was taken from two Guelph stores in August. And in December, police in Guelph arrested three men after $1,000 worth of butter was stolen from a store in the city's south end.
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