Lovers of pesto may have to start paying more for it as pine nuts, always a pricey commodity, are about to rise further in price.
After blight and bad weather reduced the crop, a black market in Italy has sprung up.
Supermarkets have begun attaching anti-theft devices to the packaged nuts.
World production of pine nuts dropped by 50% in 2012 to 18m tonnes. The year before it stood at 34m.
This already had forced up the price, but when poor weather hit coupled with a parasite which attacked the pine trees in the Mediterranean, prices rocketed further up to €47 per kilo.
Soaring prices attracted thieves.
A 23-year-old was recently arrested in Perugia having been found in possession of stolen pine nuts destined for the black market.
Last December a gang of eight raided a factory near Genova, the home of pesto in which pine nuts are a key ingredient. They made off with 7 tonnes of the nuts, believed to be worth some €400,000.
In October, an employee there was believed to have been caught taking 17kg of pine nuts out of the factory.
Spain, Italy, China, Portugal and Turkey are the principal producing countries of pine kernels, predominately from the stone pine (Pinus pinea), which has been cultivated for its nuts for over 6,000 years although the Italians often harvest from another pine (P. pinea).
The labour-intensive work of extracting the seeds from the cone has meant that they, like any number of other nuts, have always been pricey.
But with prices soaring, dealers are keeping quiet about how and when they deliver to wholesalers, and limiting the size of shipments in order to deter robbers.
