Great News! HelloFresh Says Goodbye to Coconut Milk Tied to Monkey Labour Following PETA Asia Investigation

Great News! HelloFresh Says Goodbye to Coconut Milk Tied to Monkey Labour Following PETA Asia Investigation

London – HelloFresh has confirmed that it will stop obtaining coconut milk from Thailand following a PETA Asia investigation revealing that monkeys are chained, whipped, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts from trees. PETA shared the findings of the investigation with the meal-kit company, which also received nearly 100,000 e-mails from members and supporters of PETA entities worldwide pushing for the change – and it has told members of the public that it will stop using Thai coconut milk no later than mid-2023.

“HelloFresh’s decision will help protect monkeys from being kidnapped, chained, and whipped in the coconut trade,” says PETA Corporate Projects Manager Dr Carys Bennett. “By cutting ties with Thai coconut suppliers, leaders like HelloFresh are helping PETA push the industry away from using and abusing monkeys, who belong in nature with their families.”

Coconut suppliers to Aroy-D and Suree, brands used by HelloFresh, showed PETA Asia investigators where monkeys were being used to pick coconuts, and that at a supplier to Suree, monkeys were chained on rubbish-strewn patches of dirt and flooded areas surrounded by old car tyres. One worker told investigators that the monkeys would be forced to pick coconuts for more than a decade and would then spend the rest of their lives chained.

PETA Asia’s investigation – its third into Thailand’s forced monkey labour industry – also documented that a worker struck a screaming monkey, dangled him by the neck, and then whipped him with the tether. A female monkey reportedly used for breeding was kept chained alone in the sun without access to water, while other young monkeys languished in cages. Coconut pickers said that the monkeys sometimes incur broken bones from falling out of trees or being yanked by their tethers, and a worker confirmed that most of the monkeys were kidnapped from their families in nature, even though the species exploited by the coconut trade are threatened or endangered.

PETA is now calling on Whole Foods to follow HelloFresh’s lead.

The group – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow the group on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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