If you work in the food and beverage business, you have to deal with crime. Grocers struggle with shoplifting, and transportation managers have to fret about hijackings. Fraud isn't unheard of either. The food industry is certainly no stranger to the dark side of American culture.

But in recent months, crime in the food industry seems to have taken a turn toward the bizarre. Recent events would have been unthinkable a few years ago. People are doing things that we didn't think people would ever do.

Some of these crimes are simply horrible. Others are simply strange. All of them are unexpected.

Here's a look at some of the crimes that have caught our attention.

Chicken ransom 

Last month, a trucker in Montana picked up a load of 35,000 pounds of raw chicken ... and kidnapped it. According to law enforcement officials, the driver sent a text to his bosses at Dixie River Freight demanding a ransom for the safe return of the chicken.

The company, however, had no interest in negotiating. So the trucker took the load, worth about $80,000, and parked it in a Flying J truck stop. When the truck was found a few days later, the load had spoiled. 

No arrests have been made. 

The Bristol corn heist 

In Bristol, CT, folks are particularly fond of a place called Green Acre Farm. The family that owns the operation grows sweet corn, and they often operate their farm stand on the honor system. They leave corn out for anyone who wants it. People take what the they need, and leave cash in a box.

But last month an unknown group, apparently skilled in corn harvesting, drove on to the farm under the darkness of night and stole roughly 2,400 ears of corn. 

No arrests have been made. And according to local news reports, the community was heartbroken by the violation.

The grocer hacks 

Consumers across the country are feeling nervous after disclosures of two hacker attacks aimed at a slew of supermarkets such as Cub Foods, Shaws, and Jewel-Osco. 

The attacks against the credit-card-processing systems of chains owned by Supervalu and Albertsons may have exposed millions of Americans to identity theft and credit-card fraud. 

Peanut-butter prosecutions 

Federal prosecutors last month won the convictions of three executives from the bankrupt Peanut Butter Corporation of America for their role in a fraud tied to a salmonella outbreak. 

According to witnesses, the company deliberately shipped peanut butter that was contaminated with the deadly bacteria rather than incur a financial loss. Nine people died as a result.

Meanwhile, ConAgra has warned investors it may face criminal charges in connection with a separate case involving salmonella-tainted peanut butter.

Fish kill 

Tyson is the focus of a criminal investigation by the EPA in connection with a bizarre incident in which a feed supplement made its way into the local sewers, triggering a chemical reaction that crippled a small town's sewage system and eventually killed more than 100,000 fish in a local creek.

The attorney general of Missouri has said he believes negligence was involved, but that he lacked sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges.

The chicken massacre 

There's no doubt that the strangest and most disturbing crime in the food industry in many years was the killing of 920 chickens at a California plant owned by Foster Farms.

Law enforcement says that a person or persons broke into the property, and then beat the birds to death with a golf club. The nightmarish crime — which is strangely reminiscent of the animal killings in the Broadway play "Equus" — was unusual enough to prompt one police offer to advise that "people should be alarmed." 

He doesn't need to tell us twice.