North Vancouver RCMP revealed it had thwarted an attempted heist of $12,800 worth of cheese at a grocery store. It’s the latest in a string of high-profile dairy-based robberies.
Catch-up: Even as inflation has fallen, food prices remain stubbornly high, leading to rampant levels of food theft. Meat was the most stolen grocery item as of 2022, with cheese in second place. But more recently, large-scale butter thefts have been making headlines.
- Over the past year, there have been nine instances of thieves stealing hundreds of dollars worth of butter from grocery stores in Guelph, Ontario.
- Three weeks ago, the Ontario town of Brantford was also hit when bandits made off with $1,200 in butter.
Big picture: Some food researchers think butter and cheese have been targeted by organized crime as there is a ready clientele base: bakeries contending with high prices who have turned to the black market to trim margins.
- Both products are also easily re-purposed — melted down and put into baked goods — making them more difficult to track than other stolen food items.
Why it matters: Not only does food theft raise prices further, it could lead to an annoying future where cheese is locked up like electric toothbrush heads and razor blades.—QH