Few foodstuffs arouse passions like the humble avocado.<\/p>\n
Depending who you ask, the gnarly green fruit is the vitamin-laden hero of brunch – or the reason millennials can’t buy houses<\/a>.<\/p>\n Back in May, a surge in global demand sent avocado prices to a record high<\/a>.<\/p>\n And police say this may have driven three California men to steal up to $300,000 (\u00a3234,770) worth of them from an Oxnard produce firm where they worked.<\/p>\n Ventura County Sheriff’s Office said Carlos Chavez, Rahim Leblanc, and Joseph Valenzuela were arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of grand theft of fruit.<\/p>\n The trio had been employed at Mission Produce, one of the world’s biggest avocado distributors, for several years.<\/p>\n Police believe they had been stealing and selling the fruit to unwitting customers for months.<\/p>\n The company’s president, Steve Barnard, said a box of avocados typically sells for $50, but the men were allegedly selling them for half that.<\/p>\n “They are in demand. Everybody loves avocados,” Sgt John Franchi of the sheriff’s office told the LA Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We take these kinds of thefts seriously,” he added. “It’s a big product here and in California.”<\/p>\n Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"