LONDON – Thieves with a nose for fine cheese have committed a huge cheddar fraud in London.
Neal’s Yard Dairy said a scammer posing as a wholesaler for a major French retailer made off with 22 tonnes of award-winning cheddar worth 300,000 British pounds ($390,000) before the company realized it had been defrauded and reported it. the theft on Monday.
“The high monetary value of these cheeses likely made them a particular target for the thieves,” Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor, wholesaler and retailer of British artisan cheese, said in a statement.
Detectives from Scotland Yard and international authorities are looking for the perpetrators.
Almost 1,000 wheels of cloth-wrapped cheese from three makers have gone missing: Hafod Welsh organic cheddar, Westcombe cheddar and Pitchfork cheddar.
The dairy sells a piece of Hafod cheddar for 12.90 pounds ($16.70) for 270 grams (9.5 ounces).
(Photo by Fernando Gutierrez-Juarez/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
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Tom Calver, director of Westcombe Dairy, said a lot of work went into making the cheese which is aged for 12 to 18 months.
“We are devastated,” Calver said. “For that to be stolen… it’s absolutely horrible.”
Neal’s Yard Dairy has asked international cheese traders to be on the lookout for the stolen cheese, especially in blocks of 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and 24 kilograms (52 pounds).
It says it has paid all three cheesemakers in full, in line with its ethos of supporting small, independent businesses developing the UK cheese sector.