Danish Homeless Get Russia's Gourmet Cheese

Russia's yearlong ban on food imports from the U.S. and Europe has left a lot of gourmet producers with a sizable surplus, and as a result the homeless in Denmark will be getting a large gift of gourmet cheese from one of that country's biggest producers.

According to The Local, Danish dairy giant Arla announced Thursday that it would be giving 33,000 pounds of gourmet cheese to charity as a result of Russia's embargo. Most of Arla's products that were supposed to go to Russia were able to be sold elsewhere, but the company says it has a store of products that can't really go anywhere else, either because they'd have to be repackaged or because they were designed with ingredients specifically for the Russian market.

Blueberry, olive, and arugula are among the products designed for Russia that wouldn't sell Denmark, Arla said.

"Arla has managed to use nearly all of the affected products in other markets, but a small part of the products for various reasons cannot be repackaged and sold," Arla said in a statement.

The extra cheese will be donated to Food Bank, which appears grateful for the largesse.

"For us it's a very large donation that can benefit several thousand people," said Karen-Inger Thorsen, head of the Food Bank.