British Columbia business owner Joe Chaput will spend $5,500 a month on security guards during the holiday season and plans on upgrading his store91裸聊视频檚 video camera system for around $5,000 more.

He91裸聊视频檚 not selling luxury brands or expensive jewels.

Chaput sells cheese, and at Christmas, cheese is a hot commodity.

He is the co-owner of specialty cheese store les amis du Fromage, with two locations in Vancouver.

While cheeselifting is rare in their Kitsilano store, the outlet in East Vancouver is hit in waves, with nothing happening for a month, then three of four people trying to steal their inventory within a week.

91裸聊视频淪ometimes, you miss it. Sometimes, you catch it. The way shoplifters behave 91裸聊视频� they tend to gravitate toward expensive things,91裸聊视频� said Chaput.

Expensive cheese is on shoplifters91裸聊视频� Christmas list, he said.

91裸聊视频淭hey tend to do the classic examples of staying away from customer service and trying to go to a different part of the store so they can be left alone to steal.91裸聊视频�

Chaput isn91裸聊视频檛 alone. Police say food-related crimes on are the rise in Canada and as prices climb for items such as cheese and butter, they become lucrative on the black market for organized crime groups, not to mention theft for local resale.

Sylvain Charlebois, the director of Dalhousie University91裸聊视频檚 Agri-food Analytics Lab, said a black market tends to emerge as soon as food prices surge.

91裸聊视频淥rganized crime will steal anything (if) they know they can sell it and so, they probably would have known who their clients are before even stealing anything at all, and that91裸聊视频檚 how a black market is organized,91裸聊视频� said Charlebois.

He said he believes there are two categories of people shoplifting 91裸聊视频� those who do so out of desperation because they can91裸聊视频檛 afford the food, or organized criminals, profiting from sales on the black market.

Mounties in North Vancouver made cheesy headlines when they ran into a man with a cart of stolen cheese in the middle of the night in September.

The cheese, valued at $12,800, was from a nearby Whole Foods Store. While the cheese was recovered, it had to be disposed of because it hadn91裸聊视频檛 been refrigerated.

Const. Mansoor Sahak, with the North Vancouver RCMP, said officers believe cheese is targeted because it91裸聊视频檚 91裸聊视频減rofitable to resell.91裸聊视频�

91裸聊视频淚f they are drug addicts, they will commit further crimes with that or feed their drug habits. It91裸聊视频檚 a vicious cycle,91裸聊视频� said Sahak.

Sahak said meat is also a top target for grocery thieves, with store losses sometimes in the thousands.

91裸聊视频淪o, we91裸聊视频檙e not surprised that this happened,91裸聊视频� said Sahak.

Police in Ontario have been chasing down slippery shoplifters going after butter.

Scott Tracey, a spokesman with Guelph Police Service, said there have been eight or nine butter thefts over the last year, including one theft last December worth $1,000.

In October, two men walked into a local grocer and filled their carts with cases of butter valued at $936, and four days later a Guelph grocer lost four cases valued at $958.

Tracey said he has looked at online marketplaces and found listings by people selling 20 or 30 pounds of butter at a time.

91裸聊视频淐learly, somebody didn91裸聊视频檛 accidentally buy 30 extra pounds of butter. So, they must have come from somewhere,91裸聊视频� said Tracey, 91裸聊视频淚 think at this point it appears to be the black market is where it91裸聊视频檚 headed.91裸聊视频�

He said the thefts seem to be organized, with two or three people working together in each case.

Police in Brantford, Ont., are also investigating the theft of about $1,200 worth of butter from a store on Nov. 4.

Charlebois said retailers could invest in prevention technologies like electronic tags, but putting them on butter or cheese is rare.

He said up until recently grocery store theft has been a 91裸聊视频渢aboo subject for many years.91裸聊视频�

Stores didn91裸聊视频檛 wanted to talk about thefts because they didn91裸聊视频檛 want to alarm people but now they feel they need to build awareness about what is 91裸聊视频渂ecoming a huge problem,91裸聊视频� said Charlebois.

Chaput, the cheese store owner, said he had been running the East Vancouver store for 15 years while managing the store in Kitsilano for 30 years, and he loves his customers.

91裸聊视频淚t91裸聊视频檚 really one of the best parts of our businesses, seeing familiar faces and making new customers. It91裸聊视频檚 why we come to work, really. Partly it91裸聊视频檚 the cheese, and partly it91裸聊视频檚 the people,91裸聊视频� said Chaput.

He said his strategy to combat would-be thieves is to give them extra customer service to make it harder for them to steal.

He admits, however, that the shoplifting causes him stress.

91裸聊视频淚t91裸聊视频檚 challenging. You91裸聊视频檙e busy trying to run your business day to day and take care of customers and take care of employees. Having to deal with criminals, just kind of scratches away. It can be a bit exhausting,91裸聊视频� said Chaput.