99 Ranch Market and ArirangUSA Face Scrutiny Over Monkey Labor
For Immediate Release:
February 25, 2022
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
After two PETA Asia undercover investigations revealed that monkeys forced to pick coconuts are chained, isolated, and even driven insane, locally based 99 Ranch Market and ArirangUSA are two of the few companies still selling coconut milk obtained through forced monkey labor. PETA is asking both companies to reconsider their business relationships with Chaokoh, a major offender. To drive the message home, PETA has sent a letter to Roger Chen, the CEO of 99 Ranch Market’s parent company, Tawa Supermarket Inc.—along with a dozen humanely obtained coconuts—and dispatched another letter to ArirangUSA CEO Son Joseph.
“Coconuts are sweet, but the ways monkeys in Thailand are deprived and exploited to pick them is anything but,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA hoes to see 99 Ranch Market and ArirangUSA agree that smart, sensitive primates shouldn’t be used as coconut-picking machines.”
PETA Asia’s first investigation found cruelty to monkeys on every farm, at every monkey-training facility, and in every coconut-picking contest that used monkey labor. When not being forced to pick coconuts or perform in circus-style shows for tourists, the animals were kept tethered, chained to old tires, or confined to cages barely larger than their bodies. After a global outcry, the coconut industry claimed to have changed this practice—but PETA Asia’s second investigation found producers still using monkey labor and industry insiders discussing how farms conceal this practice by simply hiding monkeys until auditors leave or by hiring contractors to bring in monkeys only during harvest time.
After hearing from PETA, more than 33,000 grocery stores—including the chains Albertsons, Kroger, Food Lion, Stop & Shop, Target, Umamicart, and Wegmans—cut ties with coconut milk brands that use coconuts picked by monkeys.
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 or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
