VANCOUVER – If someone offers you truffled Italian goat's-milk cheese from a duffle bag at your favourite Downtown Eastside watering hole, chances are it is stolen.
Expensive cheeses are a favourite target for thieves, and some grocers have been forced to put their more expensive products behind glass to combat a rising tide of light-fingered fans of high-end dairy products.
"It's definitely a problem," said Lindsay Diamond, from Duso's Fine Foods. Staff members have to keep a close eye on their products, which can cost more than $70 per kilogram, she said.
"They steal it and then they sell it. I guess there's quite a profit in it," she said. "We got a call a while ago telling us that someone was selling our cheese at the Ivanhoe Pub."
Cheese is consistently in the top three items targeted by shoplifters, according to Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Anne Longley.
"Cheese, meat and razor blades," she said.
"We have recent reports, as well as reports going back years, about cheese being shoplifted," Longley added.
Large blocks of cheese are easily resold to restaurants, sandwich shops and delis, and may also turn up in roadside stands, said security consultant Joe Wilson.
"People are willing to do it because cheese is so expensive," Wilson said.
British grocery giant Tesco has resorted to placing security tags on cheese at some stores to stop thieves.
Tesco management pointed to a sudden spike in shoplifting. The tags, which set off a store alarm if they are not deactivated, are also used on hard-liquor bottles and compact discs.
Wilson said store owners should also be keeping tabs on their staff.
"The largest problem is employee theft," said Wilson. "They wrap the cheese in cellophane and throw it in an outside garbage bin and come back later to take it and resell it."
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