US Beer Brand Begs Thieves to Return 40,000 Pounds of Beer; KitKat Chimes In: 'I Know a Thing or Two…'

Someone drove 40,000 pounds of Pabst Blue Ribbon out of a California distribution centre last month, and the brewer wants it back by 8 September, no questions asked.

Its Instagram appeal on 21 August drew a reply from KitKat's US account: 'I know a thing or two about these kinds of things.' Nestlé, the Swiss company behind KitKat, lost a lorry carrying 413,793 chocolate bars in Italy in late March. Neither the lorry nor the chocolate turned up before the company's last update.

Montclair police say two shipments left an Anheuser-Busch distribution centre in the California city on 17 August. The person collecting the beer used paperwork from a purported subcontracting company and drove away with the cargo. This type of theft is known as a 'fictitious pickup'. In these cases, criminals use false identities or documents to take legitimate shipments.

Around 10 a.m., the first load contained about $45,000 (£33,200) worth of beer and other products bound for Tucson, Arizona. Tucson never received it. About an hour later, thieves took a second load worth around $25,000 (£18,500). Paul Myers, senior director of integrated marketing operations at Pabst, described the method to CBS News Los Angeles, saying the collector had 'pretended to be the person who was supposed to pick up the beer.'

Inside the Montclair Depot Haul

Montclair police have one important correction to Pabst Blue Ribbon's social media posts. The company asked the thieves to return its 'truck', but police say no truck was stolen and only the cargo was taken.

Pabst says the missing shipment held 1,602 cases containing 33,984 cans, including 196 cases of non-alcoholic Old Milwaukee. Pallets and packaging brought the total weight to just over 40,000 pounds.

KitKat Has Been Here Before

KitKat's comment was a joke, but the brand lost a load in a similar theft. In late March, thieves stole a lorry carrying chocolate somewhere between a Nestlé factory in central Italy and Poland. They took about 12 tonnes of chocolate. KitKat later said the stolen bars could be identified through their unique batch codes and asked anyone who found one to contact the company.

Nestlé also used humour in its first response to the theft. The company joked about the thieves having good taste, while warning that cargo theft is becoming a bigger problem for businesses. Pabst has now taken the same approach, made its appeal public and set a deadline. Both brands went public within days of losing a load.

Food and Drink Theft Is Rising Fast

Food and drink thefts are rising sharply. Verisk's CargoNet, which tracks supply-chain crime in the US and Canada, recorded 708 food and beverage thefts in 2025, up 47% from the previous year. CargoNet said food and beverage had the largest increase among the commodity categories highlighted in its annual analysis.

CargoNet logged 3,594 supply-chain crime events in 2025, compared with 3,607 in 2024. Estimated losses still rose 60%, to nearly $725M (£535M). California alone accounted for 1,218 of those incidents.

The Reward, the Deadline, and the Law

The two Montclair shipments were worth about $70,000 (£51,700) in total. Verisk CargoNet puts the average theft in 2025 at $273,990 (£202,300). That puts the two Montclair thefts well below CargoNet's reported 2025 average. Pabst has offered a reward equivalent to half the value of the stolen beer if the entire load is safely returned. A private reward offer does not give a recipient immunity from prosecution.

The case of Lady Gaga's French bulldogs shows that returning stolen property does not necessarily end a criminal case. Jennifer McBride returned the dogs but was later arrested and charged with receiving stolen property. A judge subsequently ruled that she was not entitled to the $500,000 reward.

In a later Instagram update, Pabst wrote that the 'beer is getting warmer' while the 'trail is getting colder.' The original countdown gave those behind the theft 18 days and 44 minutes, apparently nodding to Pabst's 1844 founding, although the brewer has not confirmed the connection.