Italian cheese companies are scrambling for a way to deal with the sudden increase in criminal gangs’ hijackings of shipments of their dairy products.

As more truckloads of Parmesan cheese continue to be hijacked by such crime organizations, companies such as Giorgio Ciroldi of Ferrarini are seeking a way to stop their products from ending up illegally sold to corner shops in southern Italy, the Observer said.
Like other commercial items, such as computers or clothes, the gangs who steal cheese may have connections with organized criminal networks such as the (Sicilian) Mafia or the (Neapolitan) Camorra, a spokesman for the Carabinieri, the Italian military police, said. Among those solutions being considered by producers is burning their individual markings into the cheese wheels or the insertion of microchips into their products to help with identification.

The paper said that the problem comes just as a recent survey found that Parmesan cheese is actually the most shoplifted item throughout Italy.