Let’s just agree that cheese is undoubtedly one of the most popular ingredients across the world. From dishing out yummy fusion street foods to making the most of sandwiches, pizzas and pastas with oodles of cheese in it, we just can’t get over cheese. It is versatile and can make any dish delicious, and can be used in cooking in a number of ways.
And if you don’t know it yet, as easy as eating a block of cheese is, cheese-making is a careful and painstaking process that can yield many different varieties of cheese. And that is, perhaps, why some cheeses that have matured over time are actually quite expensive. So much that as per recent reports, thieves stole Dutch cheese worth 21,000 Euros or ₹17.3 lakhs in a recent heist.
According to a local news report, the daring heist took place in Fijnaart, a town in North Brabant, in the Netherlands. The thieves stole 161 cheese wheels that weighed about ten kilos each. The cheeses were reportedly transferred through a bus in a well-planned robbery.
Cheesemonger Gerda revealed that the thieves only took the young cheeses, and left the old ones since they were on the higher shelves. He also added that the cheesemaker had put in quite a bit of hard work and craftsmanship into making them and is working to restock soon. “This is bizarre but we are going to do our best to get everything back on track as soon as possible,” said Gerda to Omroep Brabant.
Image: Freepik
As per Theo Dekker, the chairman of the local dairy organisation, this was not the only recent cheese burglary that took place there. A cheese farm was also looted a few years ago on the assembly line. To figure out a way to locate the cheese, it is said that it is impossible to sell the whole cheese wheels in the Netherlands as all cheeses are provided with a unique identification code. This code can help track the cheese's origin and location where they are sold. Thieves will only have to sell the cheese in pieces and cannot sell it whole.
As a precautionary measure, Dekker suggested to fellow cheese makers, "Keep everything locked, hang up cameras and provide good insurance. A theft like this just tastes very bad."
What did you think of the bizarre cheese heist? Let us know.