LONDON (AP) — British chef Jamie Oliver is on the case of the stolen cheddar.
Oliver, who rose to fame as “The Naked Chef” on TV by stripping meals right down to its necessities, bought cheeky in an in any other case severe plea to his social media followers to assist remedy the thriller of the lacking 22 metric tons (48,488 kilos) of award-winning cheddar price 300,000 British kilos ($390,000) that was stolen in a rip-off.
Calling it the “grate cheese robbery,” Oliver informed his 10.5 million Instagram followers to be looking out for “lorry loads of very posh cheese.”
Practically 1,000 wheels of cloth-wrapped artisanal cheddar have been swiped from Neal’s Yard Dairy by a con artist posing as a wholesale distributor for a serious French retailer, the corporate stated. The cheese was gone earlier than the corporate realized it had been scammed and reported the theft Oct. 21.
“If the deal seems too gouda to be true, it probably is! Let’s find these cheese stealers,” Oliver wrote.
Cheddar, which is known as for the village in southwest England the place it originated, is the world’s best-known cheese as a result of it doesn’t have the protected standing of different regional merchandise like champagne and, thus, is produced in lots of nations. However there are solely a small variety of actual British cheddar makers, Oliver stated.
“These are some of the cheeses, or most of them, that got nicked,” he stated in a video accompanying his put up. The cheeses have been from three makers: Hafod Welsh natural cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar.
Detectives at Scotland Yard and worldwide authorities are trying to find the culprits. Neal’s Yard Dairy, a distributor, wholesaler, and retailer of British artisanal cheese, has requested worldwide cheesemongers to be looking out for the stolen cheese, notably 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 stated.
