Parmesan Warehouse

- Pictures you can smell. I smell feet.
- Unlike Parmesan, Edam is made backwards.
- That’s a really sharp image. I think it’s grate.
- Imagine all the cows and calves who died for this.

Credito Emiliano, a bank in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, offers loans in exchange for uniquely Italian collateral: golden wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

Housed in a high-security complex surrounded by barbed wire, the bank, known locally as Credem, holds some 430,000 wheels of Parmigiano-Reggiano made by farmers in the area. The stacks sit 20 wheels high and are carefully monitored. Credem staffers regularly clean, rotate, prick, and even taste each wheel.

All told, these assets are reportedly worth around €190 million.

[Image with more cheesy jokes found here.]