Police Probing Theft of Millions of Pounds of Maple Syrup From Strategic Reserve 399
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."
Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (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.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:5, 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.
Something isn't right (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.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
The odds that IHOP would use actual Maple Syrup approach 0, even if it were free.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (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.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (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.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's easy enough - just attend absolutely any hockey game.
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Maple Syrup Strategic Reserve? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's large enough to keep our military moving long enough to beat the shit out of whoever's disrupting supply.