HelloFresh Under Fire: Suppliers Caught Forcing Chained Monkeys to Pick Coconuts
HelloFresh Under Fire: Suppliers Caught Forcing Chained Monkeys to Pick Coconuts
London – A new PETA Asia investigation has revealed that international meal kit delivery giant HelloFresh uses coconut milk obtained through forced monkey labour in Thailand, where the animals are chained, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts. Investigators visited where animals were being abused and exploited, prompting PETA to call on subscribers to HelloFresh (and subsidiaries like Green ) to cancel their membership until the company stops sourcing Thai coconut products. The group urges everyone to avoid buying Thai coconut products due to the rampant abuse. Photos from the investigation are available here, and video footage is available here. Broadcast-quality footage is available upon request.
Brokers to HelloFresh’s coconut milk suppliers Aroy-D and Suree showed investigators that monkeys were being exploited to pick coconuts and that at a supplier to Suree, monkeys were chained on rubbish-strewn patches of dirt and flooded areas with car tyres as their only “shelter” from the elements. One worker told investigators that the monkeys will be forced to pick coconuts for more than a decade and then spend the rest of their lives chained.
PETA Asia’s new exposé implicates coconut pickers, brokers, farms, and monkey-training operations in nine provinces, including top-producing ones. One trainer was caught on camera dangling a screaming monkey by the neck and striking him with a tether. One monkey used for breeding was kept chained alone in the sun, without access to water, while other young monkeys languished in small cages. Coconut pickers said that the monkeys sometimes incur broken bones from falling out of – or being yanked down from – the trees, and a worker confirmed that most monkeys are kidnapped from their families in nature, even though the species of monkeys exploited by the coconut trade are threatened or endangered.
“Monkeys are chained by the neck and forced to toil day in and day out because HelloFresh and other companies are turning a blind eye,” says PETA Director of Vegan Corporate Projects Dawn Carr. “PETA is calling on everyone, including HelloFresh, to stop buying Thai coconut products until monkeys are no longer used and abused for profit.”
PETA Asia’s investigation links forced monkey labour to Chaokoh and Ampol Food Processing (whose parent company is Theppadungporn Coconut Co), Cocoburi, Tropicana Oil, Thai Pure Coconut Co, Ampawa, Edward & Sons Trading Co, and many other brands in addition to Suree and Aroy-D.
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, or Instagram.
Contact:
Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]
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