HelloFresh Says Goodbye to Coconut Milk Tied to Monkey Labor Following PETA Asia Investigation

For Immediate Release:
March 6, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

HelloFresh has confirmed that it will stop sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following a PETA Asia investigation revealing that monkeys are chained, whipped, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts from trees. PETA shared the findings of the investigation with the meal-kit company, which also received nearly 100,000 e-mails from members and supporters of PETA entities worldwide pushing for the change—and it has told members of the public that it will stop using Thai coconut milk no later than mid-2023.

“HelloFresh’s decision will help protect monkeys from being kidnapped, chained, and whipped in the coconut trade,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By cutting ties with Thai coconut suppliers, leaders like HelloFresh are helping PETA push the industry away from using and abusing monkeys, who belong in nature with their families.”

Coconut suppliers of Aroy-D and Suree, used by HelloFresh, showed PETA Asia investigators where monkeys were being used to pick coconuts and that at a supplier to Suree, monkeys were chained on trash-strewn patches of dirt and flooded areas surrounded by old car tires. One worker told investigators that the monkeys would be forced to pick coconuts for more than a decade and would then spend the rest of their lives chained.

PETA Asia’s investigation—its third into Thailand’s forced monkey labor industry—also documented that a worker struck a screaming monkey, dangled him by the neck, and then whipped him with the tether. A female monkey reportedly used for breeding was kept chained alone in the sun without access to water, while other young monkeys languished in cages. Coconut pickers said that the monkeys sometimes incur broken bones from falling out of trees or being yanked by their tethers, and a worker confirmed that most of the monkeys were kidnapped from their families in nature, even though the species exploited by the coconut trade are threatened or endangered.

PETA is now calling on Whole Foods to follow HelloFresh’s lead.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any other way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.