Monkeys’ to Hijack Long Island Whole Foods Over Abuse in Thai Coconut Industry

For Immediate Release:
July 15, 2024

Contact:
Reed Bolonyi 202-483-7382

Shoppers attending Wednesday’s grand opening of the new Whole Foods store in Huntington Station will be confronted by a troop of PETA “monkeys” chained to giant spoof Thai coconut milk cans emblazoned with “Cruel Foods” labels as the group pushes the grocery giant to stop selling coconut milk from Thailand. Whole Foods continues to stock Thai coconut milk even though it knows that the country’s coconut industry is driven by the forced labor of endangered pig-tailed macaques.

Where: Outside Whole Foods Market, 350 Walt Whitman Rd., Huntington Station

When: Wednesday, July 17, 8 a.m.

“Whole Foods is propping up an industry that kidnaps monkeys, chains them, and treats them as nothing more than coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is calling on Whole Foods to sell coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t being used.”

Why: Many monkeys exploited in Thailand’s coconut industry are illegally snatched from their forest homes as babies, fitted with metal collars, whipped, and forced to climb trees to pick heavy coconuts. Their canine teeth are often pulled out to leave them defenseless. 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. Multiple companies that produce coconut milk sold at Whole Foods were named by industry workers in a PETA Asia investigation as having used coconuts obtained via monkey labor.

HelloFresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group have stopped sourcing coconut milk from Thailand following PETA’s exposés, as have international companies such as Aldi, ASDA, and Lidl.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness.

For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.