back to article Global strategic maple syrup reserves hit in Canadian mega-heist

Commodity markets worldwide and pancake-gobbling North Americans have been left reeling by the news of an audacious theft which may have seen as much as five thousand tons of maple syrup burgled from planet Earth's "global strategic reserve" of the sticky gunge. A searing announcement from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    You what?

    Theres a global Strategic Maple syrup reserve?

    I thaught that was just a joke on South park.

    1. Thomas 4

      Re: You what?

      How the fuck do you steal *five thousand tons* of maple syrup? You'd think someone would notice the fleet of tankers being driven by guys in balaclavas? Actually scratch that, how the fuck do you *fence* [five thousand tons of maple syrup without anyone being any the wiser?

      Reality is really bad for my brain at times. X_x

      1. Asiren

        Re: You what?

        Actually, have they checked that there aren't holes in the barrels and it's all just leaked away?

  2. tony72
    Coat

    It's inevitable

    These thieves are bound to come to a sticky end.

    1. b0llchit Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: It's inevitable

      Add yeast to the sticky stolen goods and you know what is going to happen on Friday.

      Now try to prove that it was global strategic reserve maple syrup brandy!

    2. MrT

      You should have seen...

      ... the size of spoon needed to pop off the silo lid.

  3. Only me!
    Paris Hilton

    Maple syrup thieves.....

    They will be the ones with the wigs on.

  4. Greg J Preece

    Brian Fargo was right

    This is how Fallout starts, except with syrup.

  5. FartingHippo
    Alert

    Burn the heretics!!

    Don't forget that the heathens over there pour it on bacon, so they get fuck all sympathy from me.

    1. D@v3
      Pint

      Re: Burn the heretics!!

      yeah, but, have you actually tried it on bacon?

      I was of the same persuasion as yourself, until recently. I went to a pub for breakfast, got myself some pancakes with bacon, admittedly, the stuff in the jug they gave me was only maple 'flavour' syrup, but I figured, what's the harm in trying just a little bit of bacon in the syrup, and you know what, it was really rather good.

      (beer to wash it all down with, who says there's something wrong with beer with breakfast)

      1. Paul Renault

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        Maple Syrup is also good on 'Oreilles de Crisse', baked beans, ham, sausages, and eggs. Y'know, all the 'lite' fare usually served at sugar shacks in March or April, when the maple sap is running.

        Good times...

      2. nuked
        Pint

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        "who says there's something wrong with beer with breakfast"

        Nobody. Ever.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Burn the heretics!!

      "the heathens over there pour it on bacon"

      Do they do proper bacon? I'd always assumed that like their ghastly apologies for beer and chcololate, the only common aspect would be the name.

      1. Code Monkey
        Pint

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        Mr Coward, my only regret is having just the one upvote (and this tiny picture of a pint) to give.

      2. Martin Gregorie

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        "Do they do proper bacon?"

        No. Its paper-thin stuff that ends up resembling tasteless brown papadums no matter how you cook it.

        I once tried some american 'bacon' that had apparently been cured in maple syrup. That made the frying pan smell of maple syrup while I was cooking it but there was no detectable difference to its taste.

        1. Mikel
          Happy

          Re: Burn the heretics!!

          Clearly you have never heard of Wright brand "Steak Cut Bacon". 1/4" thick slabs of bacon goodness. http://www.wrightbrand.com/products

          Delicious.

      3. Swiss Anton
        Pint

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        Not so fast with the slagging off of US beer. True almost all of it is ghastly as you say, but there are a few small brewers in the US who do make some very nice ales, especially in Milwaukee. Probably they once worked for one of the big burps that dominate the city, but then decided that what they really wanted to do was brew beer. BTW I would strongly advise against visiting any Milwaukee micro brewery just before flying back home to Blighty. Jet lag + bad hangover isn't what you would call pleasant.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Burn the heretics!!

          '...Not so fast with the slagging off of US beer...'

          I was in Boston MA when over dinner I got to discussing American beer. My US host told the story of some wag who sent a sample of American beer for lab analysis. The lab report stated that 'This horse died from diabetes.'

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Thumb Up

            Re: Burn the heretics!!

            You sir owe me a new keyboard!

      4. Montreal Sean

        Re: Burn the heretics!!

        Canadian back bacon is world famous!

        Not like that cheap stuff the Americans call bacon. :)

        Oh, and have you tried any of Quebec's'micro-brews? We have some great beer, check out http://unibroue.com/

        Who had the nerve to steal some of my province's maple syrup?

        1. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Burn the heretics!!

          In Quebec you should not just try the beer. I have VERY fond memories of the food in Quebec City when I was there. Really, really, really very good indeed. I'll toast to the thought of returning there and having an 'Assiette du Pecheur"

    3. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: Burn the heretics!!

      Actually, I find that a properly made galette (buckwheat pancake, Bretonne style) with crispy fried bacon and maple syrup works very well. It is a culinary version of the Dutch "spekpannenkoek" (bacon pancake) which is usually served with treacle. Despite the reputation of Dutch "cuisine" in general, the spekpannenkoek can be really nice.

      1. Stoneshop
        Headmaster

        @Michael H.F. Wilkinson Re: Burn the heretics!!

        Sir, I salute you for not only knowing of the Dutch spekpannekoek, but appreciating them as well.

        (spekpanneNkoek is spelling reform idiocy)

    4. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Burn the heretics!!

      Maple Syrup is good on anything.

  6. Panzerbjorn
    Mushroom

    Mmmmm, delicious...

    Dammit, time to buy up whatever stock I can get my hands on.

    American pancakes with eggs, bacon and maple syrup is ridiculously delicious...

    And I, for one, will happily support the war effort if it means I don't have to worry about my maple syrup supply...

    1. IanPotter
      Thumb Up

      Re: Mmmmm, delicious...

      Nice, though I vote for French toast with bacon and maple syrup myself.

  7. Johnny Canuck

    No worries here

    Perhaps the Yanks will need a reminder of what happened the last time they tried to invade us.

    1. Bored Stupid

      Re: Perhaps the Yanks...

      I've no idea, did they steal all your Maple Syrup like this time?

      1. Shaun Hunter
        Mushroom

        Re: Perhaps the Yanks...

        We burnt their capital to the ground in 1812.

        1. Bored Stupid
          Unhappy

          Re: Perhaps the Yanks...

          "Bored Stupid" makes mental note to avoid inserting his humour into any transatlantic discussion...

        2. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

          Ha, that's nothing

          The Russians burnt their *own* capital to the ground in 1812...

          1. Bored Stupid

            Re: Ha, that's nothing

            Decent of them, saved the Canadians a few boat fares.

            1. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

              Re: Ha, that's nothing

              You're too kind. But the French were paying anyway, so why not?

        3. O RLY

          Re: Perhaps the Yanks...

          Washington was sacked and burned in 1814.

    2. xperroni
      Trollface

      Re: No worries here

      And that assuming they won't get confused by Quebec's francophone nature and end up invading France by mistake...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: No worries here

        Les Quebecoise may be francophone, but they definitely don't speak proper French! Ask any Frenchman.

    3. laird cummings

      Re: No worries here

      Perhaps the Canuks will remember the reuslts of *every* invasion launched southwards from Canada? Y'all got some catching up to do.

      Besides - We don't need to cross the border - we've got our own maple syrup region. Indeed, it's located in exactly the region where every south-bound invasion has foundered. Coincidence?

  8. TeeCee Gold badge
    Headmaster

    "burglarized"

    They richly deserved everything they got for that alone.

    If they want to know who burgled their warehouse, I suggest looking for a crack team of pedantic grammar nazis with a pancake fetish.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "burglarized"

      Amongst the commentards of El Reg would be a good place to start then.

    2. Stoneshop
      Headmaster

      Re: "burglarized"

      I'm waiting for "burglarization", followed by "burglarizationised"

      1. ArmanX

        Re: "burglarized"

        Now, if only they could find the burglarizationist who did this! Not, of course, to be confused with a burglarizationoligist, who is someone who studies burglarizations. And of course, a burglarizationectomy may be required, to remove the buglarization. Unless you wanted to get rid of the burglarizationoligist, in which case you'll need a burglarizationoligistectomy. If you only wanted to speak the language of buglarizations, you'd need to speak with a burglarizationolinguist.

        Burglarization... burgl... buglari... No, see, now it doesn't even sound like a real word.

  9. Mako
    Coat

    Is there any news...

    ...of the anticipated effect on IHOP and Denny's shares?

    1. Tom Wood

      Re: Is there any news...

      No, because they use flavoured corn syrup anyway.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Is there any news...

      The aforementioned chain restaurants have long since descended to a level of mediocrity that leaves them impervious to any shortage of real maple syrup.

      1. Charles 9
        Go

        Re: Is there any news...

        Well, if IHOP and Denny's have descended to mediocrity, where does that leave the Waffle House?

        1. skeptical i
          Pint

          Off the interstate, near the airport ...

          ... and at other locations where 'quality' can be spelled with a 'K' as long as the service is fast.

          Good people watchin', though.

          Especially after a beer or three or seven.

  10. Dick Emery
    Holmes

    Sheet is aboot to hit the fan!

    It was Terence & Philip I tell ya's!

    This could end up a VERY sticky situation indeed!

  11. Hayden Clark Silver badge
    Devil

    What maple syrup

    We are of course assuming that the "maple syrup" in the barrels was actually there in the first place.......

    1. Marty
      Devil

      Re: What maple syrup

      yes, it is a little bit suspicious....

      When the USA producers of Maple syrup have a failed harvest, but just a few miles to the north they have business as usual sounds a little suspicious to me.

      I bet the crop was just as bad as in the south so they just pretended it was business as usual and are going to claim on the insurance.....

      the remaining harvest will retail at a premium, they get the money back for the lost harvest, they are in a win win situation.....

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh please. Fifteen thousand barrels just turn up empty? It's pretty obvious they were never filled in the first place. Someone has been running a huge scam and now they're cashing in.

    1. Amonynous

      Smells fishy (or bacony perhaps)..

      Yep, store your non-existent syryp in barrels, buy options on the futures market, wait a while, claim it has been nicked and watch your options skyrocket in value.

      I don't know if they subsidise production at all, but if so you could finance your options purchases by claiming your gov't subsidies for producing non-existent syrup from non-existent trees as per southern European olive oil scams of years gone by.

      It seems barely credible that you could 'burglarize' that much material without anyone noticing. Especially if you have to offload it barrel by barrel in to something else. Maybe they aren't little wooden barrels but giant industrial tanks, but they story seems to suggest the former?

      In any event, if the missing sticky stuff was really there the global supply will not go in to meltdown, since the same amount of syrup exists today as it did yesterday, and whomever nicked it will still want to sell it.

      Unless it is another state-sponsored resource grab by the Chinese government of course? Maybe the new jPhone 5 has its back cover stuck down with syrup and they want to ensure that nobody else has access to this scarce resource?

    2. James 100
      Pint

      Yep. A barrel, a tonne, even a dozen or so tonnes on a truck would be a theft - but thousands of tonnes of the stuff is a different setup entirely. Someone delivering trucks of mixed full and empty barrels over the course of months, or similar.

      I take it someone has checked those barrels were genuinely supposed to be full, it wasn't just an accounting error recording inventory being higher than it should be?

      (Pint - another sweet, tasty golden substance they like there!)

  13. richardcox13
    FAIL

    "Dominion's vast southern neighbour"

    The dominion in question has a somewhat larger area than the southern neighbour.

    Too much sub-editing without fact checking?

    1. Amonynous
      Joke

      Re: "Dominion's vast southern neighbour"

      I think Lewis was talking about the girth of bloke who ate all the pancakes (with syrup and bacon on top) rather than the area of the continental USA. I may be wrong about that, but I suspect not.

    2. Stoneshop

      Re: "Dominion's vast southern neighbour"

      Maybe he was comparing it to just Quebec, where this scam heist has taken place, and where they talk non-English anyway, like those baguette-wielding frogs who quit out of NATO.

  14. solarian
    IT Angle

    The IT angle...

    ...is that maple is defined as "[a]ny of the trees or shrubs of the genus Acer".

    In case anyone was wondering.

  15. pete 22

    If they were gnna invade...

    If they were gonna invade they would have done it back when Celine Dionne... just to shut it up. But they didn't see, Canada and the US get along just fine after all! :D

  16. MD Rackham
    Holmes

    I think they need to bring Mrs. Butterworth in for questioning.

  17. Robot

    Didn't know our maple syrup will get Reg comments from the whole English-speaking world

    Makes me feel kind of proud of being, eh, a Canuck. And a Quebecois to boot. All your syrup are belong to us.

    1. Alan Dougherty

      Re: Didn't know our maple syrup will get Reg comments from the whole English-speaking world

      No.. all your syrup are beloing to tanker driving thieves, if it existed in the first place :)

  18. npo4
    Thumb Up

    Well... apart from the $30 million worth which was stolen...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Knowledgeable Americans(not)

    This is Brilliant to watch, if you have the time, unless you are geographically challeneged.

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7111005509913775935

  20. etabeta
    Facepalm

    Patented

    Maybe they hid it because they discovered that Apple was granted a patent for maple syrup!

  21. LaeMing
    Go

    The theives have

    hidden it in a huge dis-used molasses tank on a hill above their hideout.

    Nothing could go wrong with such a set-up!

    1. DanceMan
      Alert

      Re: The theives have

      Wasn't it in Boston maybe 100 years ago that a massive molasses storage tank, the size of refinery tanks, burst and wiped out a neighbourhood?

      What could go wrong indeed.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Can't see how it matters

    OK, it matters for those who it was stolen from, but it isn't going to affect the supply or price much presuming thieves want to cash in on it by selling it, rather than just dumping it into one of the Great Lakes in an attempt to short pancake mix futures.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Can't see how it matters

      Those fish have enough problems without diabetes :P

  23. Herby

    Government sponsored?

    From the looks of it, it might have been done by the "food police" financed by "sugar taxes" in New York City. Probably a campaign promise by Mayor Bloomberg.

    This just in, stocks of Maple Syrup companies up by 20%.

  24. tkioz

    As amusing as it is, steeling legitimate products to resell is very lucrative, even more so then drugs and guns, and much safer.

  25. Chimp

    John Ringo...

    .... is the obvious suspect here.

  26. hamcheeseandonion
    Pint

    Re: John Ringo

    At last!!....Mr Chimp....I salute you and all your simian clan....I was wondering how long it would take before someone/thing spotted the obvious suspect...too few readers of the famed Ringo it seems....<much sadness>

    <pint, as no banana icon>

  27. George Nacht
    Angel

    You got it all wrong

    Tis was not man´s work, stealing at such large scale. All the syrupy goodness was clearly taken to Heaven, and we here are Left Behind....and without a maple syrup.

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Over here REAL Maple Syrup - with the Great Australian Gouge mark up...

    It's really fucking expensive.

    Would be nice to have a wooden 200 liter barrel of it.... cream buns, or donuts, with real cream, dipped into a deep bowl of it....

    No make that several 200 liter barrels of it...

    No make that 2 or 3 hundred liter barrels of it....

    I know, I just down the pub just asked me if I'd like to buy a truck full of it, complete with the truck - $50, just park it around the back in the shed where no one can see it.

    Done deal.

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