Theft
of food on large scale, is not something that happens commonly.
People keep lifting from hotels, airlines, silverware, stainless
steel spoons and forks, though airlines have started issuing plastic
spoons now a days, to cut down on this pilferage. In India,
immediately after independence, we used to have terrible food
shortages and food was rationed. Yet even then, theft of food was not
something that happened often. I remember having read in news papers
about news of breaking in railway wagons to steal food, mainly
cereals, pulses and sugar very occasionally. But it definitely was
not a common occurrence.
On
this kind of background, news of theft of any food item and that too
in an affluent country, like Germany or US, is bound to be headline
news. Nutella is the brand name of a hazelnut chocolate spread,
manufactured by an Italian company Ferrero, and was introduced in
the western markets in 1963. This delicious chocolate hazelnut
spread is quite a hit with kids and school/college going boys. It has
a high calorie content and a two-tablespoon serving of Nutella
contains 200 calories. The main ingredients of Nutella are sugar,
palm oil, hazelnut, cocoa solids, and skimmed milk. In US, Nutella
contains soy products.
Columbia
University in New York City, is considered as one of the prestigious
Ivy League schools in US. It introduced Nutela spread to diners in
its dining halls such as Ferris Booth Commons, sometime at the
beginning of this year. It was found soon, that Nutela consumption in
the dining halls had sky rocketed. University officials admit that
cost was initially very high for offering Nutella. They had to spend
US$ 2500 per week, just to replace the stocks. Students were seen
filling cups of Nutella to-go, and even taking the full jars out.
Columbia
university’s newspaper ' Spectator' ran a story on this and
reported that students would take large amounts of the sweet treat,
to-go or take away, but let it go to waste, and estimated that the
university would spend a quarter of a million dollars on Nutella in
an academic year if it went through its rapid consumption. Later it
corrected the story and now says that the students were actually
stealing $5,000 worth of Nuttela spread each week from the dining
halls. The students say that the dining at this New York college is
$4,726 per year, and there is nothing wrong if they consume large
quantities of this sweet.
At
Columbia, the students just seem to be taking Nutela spread to their
dormitories. But in Germany, there has been a full scale theft of
Nutela, from a truck trailer, parked in the parking area in the city
of Niederaula in the central state of Hesse, Hersfeld-Rotenburg
district, northeast of Frankfurt. This site of theft is near a road
transport hub where truck drivers living in the region, tend to park
their trucks at weekends.
The
thieves broke into the trailer and stole seven palettes or 5 metric
tons of Nutella jars, worth a total of about 16,000 euros. According
to Police, this particular site is notorious for its past record
thefts of food products. Thieves from this the region have previously
stolen other large quantities of food products, which includes five
tons of coffee worth 30,000 euros and 34,000 cans of an energy drink,
during last year.
The
sticky fingered thieves of Germany now appear to be specializing in
theft of food products only, instead of bank heists and priceless
objects of art. Very interesting, isn't it?
10
April 2013
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