Photos: Whole Foods ‘Monkey Business’ Has PETA Dumping Coconuts Outside London Store

Photos: Whole Foods ‘Monkey Business’ Has PETA Dumping Coconuts Outside London Store

London – Because Whole Foods is selling coconut milk from Thailand – even though PETA Asia investigations have revealed that monkeys in that country are caged, kept in isolation, chained for life, and trained through fear of punishment to pick coconuts, today, PETA “monkeys” launched a new international campaign by dumping humanely picked coconuts outside the Whole Foods store at London’s Piccadilly Circus. The action follows PETA’s successful campaign targeting HelloFresh, which has now confirmed that Thai coconut milk will be banned from its meal-kit service by this summer.

Images are also available here.

Many monkeys used in Thailand’s coconut-picking industry are abducted from their troupes in their natural forest homes when they’re babies. Handlers put metal collars and tethers on them and sometimes remove their canine teeth so they can’t defend themselves. PETA Asia’s investigative footage shows trainers striking them, dangling them by the neck, and whipping them. Because the industry and the Thai government lie and deceive consumers about their systemic reliance on monkey labour, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is cruelty-free.

“Whole Foods knows that Thailand’s forced monkey labour is a damnable business, yet it is profiting off primates’ suffering by selling coconut milk from that country,” says PETA Senior Campaigns Manager Kate Werner. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to take a whole lot of suffering off its shelves by selling canned coconut milk only from countries like India,  Brazil, and the Philippines, where monkey labour isn’t used.”

PETA – 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, TikTok, or Instagram.

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