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Police Probing Theft of Millions of Pounds of Maple Syrup From Strategic Reserve

Posted by Unknown on from the greatest-heist-of-our-time dept.

An anonymous reader writes with this bit from the Globe and Mail: "Quebec police are on the hunt for a sticky-fingered thief after millions of dollars of maple syrup vanished from a Quebec warehouse. The theft was discovered during a routine inventory check last week at the St-Louis-de-Blandford warehouse, where the syrup is being held temporarily. The Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, which is responsible for the global strategic maple syrup reserve, initially kept the news quiet, hoping it would help police solve the crime quickly."

13 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by Sez+Zero · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wait, what?!

    1. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Quebec's answer to everything in the universe is more committees, more control, and more bureaucracy. You'd know that if you lived in Quebec or near Quebec. There is a government committee for everything.

    2. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by characterZer0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It makes sense. If export demand spikes or production dips you want to have a reserve to use to stabilize the price so people keep buying the stuff instead of switching to something else, so your business model and power remain intact. It is for the exact same reason we have oil reserves.

      --
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    3. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by jeffasselin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Production of maple syrup can vary highly from one year to the next, depending on weather conditions. The ideal conditions are rather strict, where the temperature is below freezing at night just above 4C during the day. If it's too warm or too cold, very little production can be done.

      Because of this, each year producers deliver some of their syrup to the strategic reserve, to ensure that every year a certain amount can be sold on the local and global markets. Before this initiative was taken, the were years when the price of syrup was really high, and even unavailable. That almost led to riots! Production these last few years has been much better, so the reserve isn't tapped much, but it's still a good idea, we don't know what might happen with GCC.

      --
      If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
    4. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by craigminah · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sounds like a headline from The Onion.

    5. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Dear USA. The fact that you try to make fun of us... is in itself hilarious.

      If you're going to laugh at us, laugh at us for our godawful government currently trying as hard as possible to make Canada as much like the USA as possible.

    6. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by TubeSteak · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wouldn't be so quick to call his comment rational.
      Or at least not the part about oil, unless global commerce is also fueled by maple syrup.

      Nobody keeps strategic oil reserves "to stabilize the price so people keep buying the stuff instead of switching to something else"
      They keep them so that the country doesn't grind to a halt the next time there's a significant supply disruption.

      --
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      o0t!
    7. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by AdamWill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, that's easy enough - just attend absolutely any hockey game.

    8. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by Thorodin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Aw, c'mon. We're just teasing you just a bit. ("Homer Simpson on why he won't take a vacation in Canada: 'Why do I want to visit America Junior?'") Actually, I have a few connections to Canada: 1. I live in Michigan so you're like next door neighbors; 2. At work, we use a software product whose company is in Canada; 3. One of my best friends step-father is Canadian; and 4. I'm part Canadian as my great-grandmother on my Dad's side was Canadian. So, it's all in fun and I consider Canadians to be my brothers and sisters. And we in the US, really did appreciate the bravery shown by Canadian diplomats when they helped to smuggle a few Americans out of Iran way back when.

    9. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by guises · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That is not correct, at least not for the US strategic oil reserve: it is explicitly there in order to help stabilize the price, created in response to the spike in price in the 70s. It isn't nearly large enough to keep the country running in case of a supply disruption of any significant length.

    10. Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? by Loki_1929 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's large enough to keep our military moving long enough to beat the shit out of whoever's disrupting supply.

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      -- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
  2. Something isn't right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Millions of pounds means hundreds of thousands of gallons, means 1000 or so tanker trucks worth of the stuff. We're either dealing with an accounting error or a theft over an extremely long time frame.

  3. Re:In other news... by AvitarX · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The odds that IHOP would use actual Maple Syrup approach 0, even if it were free.

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