Associated Food Stores Profits From Exploited Monkeys—Take Action!
Update: April 4, 2022
Victory! Grocery wholesaler Associated Food Stores has ended sales of Chaokoh brand coconut milk following more than 80,000 e-mails from PETA supporters and a delivery of humanely picked coconuts to its CEO.
Help keep the momentum going by urging 99 Ranch Market to reconsider its business relationship with Chaokoh.
Originally posted on October 2021:
Monkeys are complex, social animals who live in large groups with their families and communicate in their own language made up of various calls and facial gestures. However, as PETA Asia investigators recently uncovered, monkeys are exploited for their labor and denied everything that’s natural and important to them. PETA Asia investigators visited coconut farms in Thailand and found monkeys with heavy metal collars fastened around their necks chained and forced to spend long hours climbing trees and picking coconuts, including for one of Thailand’s major coconut milk producers, Chaokoh.
On coconut farms, the animals are trained to work through abuse and fear and are kept chained on trash-strewn dirt patches when they’re not being forced to pick coconuts, even though humane harvest methods are readily available.
After being made aware of the ugly origins of Chaokoh coconut milk, more than 33,000 stores—including chains Wegmans, Kroger, Target, Albertsons, and Safeway—have pulled it from their shelves. But Associated Food Stores, which owns Dan’s Fresh Market, Dick’s Fresh Market, and Fresh Market, has refused.
