Would you steal a loaf of bread to feed your family? How about a five tonnes of Nutella to feed the underground economy?

Movies like 'The Italian Job' and 'Oceans 11' have showed us that most criminals go after big-ticket items - a huge score that'll set them up for life (and maybe land them somewhere without extradition treaties).

However, there's also a brand of bandit that targets items that are perishable.

Here, we look at food thefts far worse than the guy who swipes grapes at the grocery store.

1. Nutella

You may have heard about this story recently; it actually inspired this list. As one wag put it on a newspaper website, "truly a bunch of nut cases".

Police in Bad Hersfeld, Germany say someone stole a whopping five tonnes of Nutella, the chocolate spread that is inexplicably indispensable. For those keeping count, that's 6,875 jars worth nearly $22,000.

As the Guardian put it, "imagine two medium-sized elephants made of Nutella."

According to reports, there may be a black market for the stuff. Germans news agency DPA reported that thieves have previously stolen a load of energy drinks from the same location.

2. Maple Syrup.

There's nothing more Canadian than maple syrup, if airport duty free stores are any indication.

We actually did a post on this earlier this season - thieves who targeted a warehouse northeast of Montreal belonging to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers.

Quebec, by the way, is responsible for three quarters of the world's supply.

When officials ran an inventory, they found many barrels had been swiped. About $20 million worth was eventually recovered in New Brunswick.

It's presumed the robbers took it away in some sort of tanker truck.

3. Wine

Now this makes more sense as an investment.

Back in January, thieves got away with 60,000 bottles of South Australian wine in New South Wales, worth about half a million dollars.

The 62,000 bottles didn't arrive at the WineWorks company depot over the Australia Day long weekend as scheduled and trailers carrying the wine were found empty.

4. Hamburger Patties

As Fox News put it, "Blame it on the Hamburglar."

Police in New Jersey are on the lookout after a big hamburger theft.

Just last week, a 40 foot refrigerated shipping container with 3000 cartons of patties, worth $100,000 dollars, disappeared.

5. Chocolate

Someone went through a lot of trouble to make off with 18 tonnes of chocolate.

According to this report in USA Today, a truck driver loaded 33 pallets of milk chocolate at a factory in Austria.

Trouble is, the license plate and paperwork for the truck were forged and the vehicle disappeared. The real truck - bound for the Czech Republic - showed up later.

Police called the caper, "very sophisticated."

6. Bananas

Back in 2010, someone took off with a refrigerated trailer carrying 980 boxes of bananas in New Jersey.

Police say the trailer was taken from Vineland Produce Auction, with the bananas valued at $15,000. Not only that, but the trailer was worth about 10 grand.

7. Pork

Last summer, a PIG of a crook in Australia hit a depot in Melbourne in the dead of night, and got away with $40,000 worth of pork.

The truck was found two days later, with $12,000 worth missing. Terrible timing for the company, as it was apparently getting ready for "salami season".

8. Cheese

If you're gonna swipe cheese, Wisconsin is the place to do it - it produces one-quarter of America's cheeses.

In this case, the suspect presented false paperwork to a distributor to get 42,000 pounds of cheese loaded onto his truck.

It was bound for Texas and lifted from a company that processes 120,000 lbs of fresh milk daily to keep up with demand.

A New Jersey police officer said, "We've seen everything stolen. We've found stolen beer, stolen food, stolen machine parts, but this is the first time [for stolen cheese]."

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