Say cheese. It's ripe for robbing

Photo by Azzedine Rouichi on Unsplash

With the French elections coming to an end, it’s a good time to think of other cheesy woes.

Not least the inherent problems with being a cheese lover at this point of time.

According to reports, prices are soaring, even for the mildest of cheddars. Supply shortages and inflation are making cheese a desirable commodity to steal. Not too long ago, thieves appropriated 1,600 kilos of cheese from a Dutch dairy farm. Apparently the last such cheese robbery was in Italy in 2018, when thieves stole 271 wheels of organic Parmesan, weighing 12,500 kilos. In 2016, a truck with 10,000 kilos of cheese was stolen in Wisconsin.

The Financial Times says (paywall) that the US benchmark price for cheese is akin to a barrel of West Texas Intermediate for oil and is set by 40-pound blocks of cheddar trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. At this point of time, the cheddar blocks are trading at about $2.23 a pound, which is a third higher since the start of 2021. Th…