British chef Jamie Oliver urges followers to help solve the ‘grate cheese robbery’

LONDON (AP) — British chef Jamie Oliver is on the case of the stolen cheddar.

Oliver, who rose to fame as “The Bare 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 clear up 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 theft,” Oliver advised his 10.5 million Instagram followers to be looking out for “lorry a great deal of very posh cheese.”

Almost 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 significant French retailer, the corporate mentioned. The cheese was gone earlier than the corporate realized it had been scammed and reported the theft Oct. 21.

“If the deal appears too gouda to be true, it most likely is! Let’s discover these cheese stealers,” Oliver wrote.

Cheddar, which is called 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 mentioned.

“These are a few of the cheeses, or most of them, that bought nicked,” he mentioned in a video accompanying his submit.

The cheeses have been from three makers: Hafod Welsh natural cheddar, Westcombe cheddar, and Pitchfork cheddar.

Detectives at Scotland Yard and worldwide authorities are looking for 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 anybody hears something about posh cheese going for reasonable, it’s most likely some mistaken’uns,” Oliver mentioned.