A tonne of cheese stolen from prize-winning Brabant maker

Over 1,000 kilos of cheese has been stolen from a cheesemaker in Noord-Brabant, not long after he won a gold medal at a national competition, local broadcaster Omroep Brabant has reported.

The burglary was discovered on Saturday morning at Wilco de Crom’s family firm Nieuwerwets in Knegsel.

“It must have been premeditated,” he told Omroep Brabant. “I don’t want to say how much it was worth, so as not to give other people ideas.”

Security camera footage shows the thieves arriving in a small van after driving through the field next door. “You can still see the tracks,” he said. “Then they drove through the fence and broke open door.”

The thieves used the cheese shop’s own wheelbarrow to take the cheese to their van. “In total, it must have taken over an hour to load up all the cheese,” De Crom said.

Cheese thefts are not uncommon in the Netherlands. In 2022, thieves made off with 1,600 kilos of cheese worth €21,000 from a dairy farm in Fijnaart in Noord-Brabant.

And last year, the dairy producers’ union Boerderijzuivelbond said criminals are increasingly targeting cheese sellers and stealing their products. Whole wheels of cheese can cost as much as €100 to €150.

The cheeses have a registration number and can, therefore, be traced, although many stolen wheels are thought to end up abroad.

For cheese sellers, the thefts are “a financial disaster”, the association said, because it takes at least 12 months to mature old cheese.