Special Delivery: PETA to Lob Coconuts at Whole Foods Pacific Northwest President Over Forced Monkey Labor

For Immediate Release:
June 22, 2023

Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382

Whole Foods Pacific Northwest Regional President Angela Lorenzen will get an unusual gift this week: PETA is sending the executive an armload of human-picked coconuts along with a letter urging her to ban Thai coconut milk from the company’s stores .

Thailand’s coconut-picking industry is fueled by the labor of endangered pig-tailed macaques—many of whom were illegally snatched from their forest homes as babies. Handlers fit them with rigid metal collars, use chains and leashes to choke and control them, and may pull out their canine teeth so that they can’t defend themselves. Several brands of coconut milk Whole Foods sells were named by industry workers as having sourced coconuts obtained by monkey labor. And because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it.

“Whole Foods’ decision to continue selling Thai coconut milk exhibits a willful disregard for monkeys being kidnapped and used as coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to stop supporting Thailand’s abusive coconut industry and get Thai coconut milk off its shelves immediately.”

PETA is sending a letter and coconuts to each of Whole Foods’ nine regional presidents.

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 about PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.