Woman gets caught stealing Parmesan cheese at Whole Foods for a year. Then the store gives her a shocking choice: ‘make me feel bad about it?’

A TikTok creator’s lighthearted confession about stealing Parmesan from Whole Foods is drawing attention long after she says she left those habits behind.

In a viral TikTok video, creator Sam Doll recounts how she regularly stole Parmesan cheese from Whole Foods while she was a university student, arguing that soaring grocery prices made the product feel impossible to justify. She tells the story with self-deprecating humor, explaining how it eventually ended when she says a store employee caught her trying to leave with cheese hidden in her pocket.

“I went through a phase where I would steal cheese from the grocery store,” Doll says, before explaining that she never targeted individuals or small businesses. Instead, she says she only stole from major grocery chains because she viewed them differently from ordinary people.

Why she says Parmesan became worth the risk

“I’ll only steal from like a massive corporation, specifically grocery stores because that’s the most unjust of all of it,” she says, adding that she struggled to justify paying what she considered inflated prices while she was in university.

She says her previous job at Whole Foods gave her an advantage, claiming, “I used to work at Whole Foods so I would know exactly what aisle didn’t have cameras.” 

According to her account, she would hide the it in her pocket while paying for the rest of her groceries, believing that was the only item she couldn’t afford. That routine, she says, continued for more than a year before a secret shopper confronted her as she tried to leave the store.

The employee offered her two options. Doll recalls being escorted to a back room where a loss prevention employee told her, “Okay, we can either call the police or you can promise to never shop here again.”

She says choosing between the two was easy. “Obviously I promised never to shop here. Why would I want the police involved?” she says, before joking that she eventually returned anyway after dyeing her hair a different color.

The video drew thousands of reactions, though many viewers focused less on the shoplifting itself. Much of the reaction instead focused on the rising cost of food, a recurring theme on TikTok that has also appeared in videos about unexpected restaurant fees.

Many commenters focused less on whether Doll stole the cheese and more on why she says she did it. One popular comment read, “I need more cheese thieving moms on my algorithm.” Another viewer shared their own story, writing, “I used to spite steal from Walmart because my ex did loss prevention there.”

Other commentators agreed with the distinction Doll drew between corporations and individuals. “Yep… capitalism steals our wages so I figure it’s fair game,” one commenter wrote. Similar comments appeared throughout the thread.

Some commenters also focused on the item itself, noting, “I read before that cheese is actually the most commonly stolen food item.” 

While that claim has circulated for years, cheese has long been considered especially vulnerable to theft because of its relatively high value and steady demand, though exactly how it ranks varies by retailer and country.

Although Doll says she has stopped shoplifting, she admits her views on large corporations have changed less than her behavior. While she says becoming a parent has changed her actions, she also insists she still doesn’t see theft from major corporations the same way, telling viewers to “make me feel bad about it.”

Recalling a conversation with her husband, she says he asked whether she would steal a luxury car from a dealership if she knew she would never face consequences.

Returning to the argument, she says, “If I knew I would get away with it… I’d steal a f***g plane off a runway,” she says, before clarifying that she would never steal from “the common man.”

Throughout the video, she keeps returning to the price of Parmesan, arguing that it had become too expensive to justify on a student budget. Cheese prices have become a talking point in food videos too, including one in which a restaurant customer brought his own slice rather than paying an extra charge. 

By the end of the video, Doll jokes that she now pays for her cheese because she can afford it and wants to set a good example for her child, though she still calls the price of cheese “one of the biggest injustices” at the grocery store.