British chef Jamie Oliver has taken up the case of the stolen cheddar and this cheese heist could very well be adapted into a Netflix show soon! Oliver recently urged his social media followers to help crack the case of 22 metric tons (48,488 pounds) of award-winning cheddar valued at £300,000 ($390,000) that was stolen in a scam.
Referring to it as the “grate cheese robbery,” Oliver asked his 10.5 million Instagram followers to watch out for “lorry loads of very posh cheese.”
According to Neal’s Yard Dairy, nearly 1,000 wheels of cloth-wrapped artisanal cheddar were taken by a scammer pretending to be a wholesale distributor for a major French retailer. The theft was only discovered and reported on October 21 after the cheese had already disappeared.
“If the deal seems too gouda to be true, it probably is! Let’s find these cheese stealers,” Oliver wrote.
Cheddar, named after the village in southwest England where it was first made, is the world’s most famous cheese partly because, unlike products like champagne, it lacks protected status and is produced globally. However, Jamie Oliver noted that only a few authentic British cheddar makers remain.
“These are some of the cheeses, or most of them, that got nicked,” he said in a video accompanying his post. The stolen cheeses came from three producers: Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar.
Scotland Yard detectives, along with international authorities, are actively investigating to track down those responsible.
Neal’s Yard Dairy, which distributes, wholesales, and retails British artisanal cheese, has alerted international cheesemongers to watch for the missing cheddar, especially in 10-kilogram (22-pound) and 24-kilogram (52-pound) blocks.
“If anyone hears anything about posh cheese going for cheap, it’s probably some wrong’uns,” Oliver said. The Metropolitan Police in London announced Friday that they are investigating a "report of a large quantity of cheese being stolen" from the London location.
“Enquiries are ongoing into the circumstances,” it said, adding that no arrests had been made so far.
Neal's Yard Dairy later took to Instagram to thank "everyone who has rallied to support us in the last few days". They wrote, "Since sharing the news of our theft, we have received an overwhelming number of calls, messages, and visits."