HelloFresh Under Fire: Suppliers Caught Forcing Chained Monkeys to Pick Coconuts
For Immediate Release:
November 14, 2022
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
A new PETA Asia investigation released today has revealed that delivery giant HelloFresh uses coconut milk obtained through monkey labor in Thailand, where the animals are chained, whipped, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts. Investigators visited 57 operations where animals were being abused and exploited at each one, prompting PETA to call on subscribers to HelloFresh (and subsidiaries like Green Chef) to cancel their membership until the company stops sourcing from Thailand and to ask everyone not to buy any canned coconut milk products manufactured in the country 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 trash-strewn patches of dirt and flooded areas with car tires 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 on a chain.
PETA Asia’s new exposé also implicates coconut pickers, brokers, farms, and monkey-training operations in nine provinces, including top-producing ones. A trainer was documented striking a screaming monkey, dangling him by the neck, and then whipping 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 down, and a worker confirmed that most of the monkeys are kidnapped from their families in nature, even though the species exploited by the coconut trade are threatened or endangered.
“Monkeys are chained around the neck and forced to toil day in and day out, all for HelloFresh and other companies that lack a conscience,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on everyone, including HelloFresh, to stop buying canned coconut milk from Thailand until monkeys are no longer used and abused for profit.”
In addition to Suree and Aroy-D, PETA Asia’s investigation links monkey labor to Chaokoh and Ampol Food (whose parent company is Theppadungporn Coconut Co.), Tropicana Oil, Thai Pure Coconut Co., Ampawa, Edward & Sons Trading Co., and many other brands.
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 on PETA’s investigative newsgathering and reporting, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.
