Purple Carrot Wins Blue Ribbon for Dropping Coconut Milk Tied to Monkey Labor

For Immediate Release:
July 20, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

Purple Carrot has confirmed that it will stop obtaining 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. In thanks, PETA is sending the vegan meal kit delivery company a Blue Ribbon Award and delicious monkey-shaped vegan chocolates.

“Purple Carrot’s decision will help prevent monkeys from being kidnapped and sold as coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By cutting ties with Thai coconut suppliers, leaders like Purple Carrot are helping PETA push the industry away from using and abusing monkeys, who belong in nature with their families.”

PETA Asia’s investigation—its third into Thailand’s forced monkey labor industry—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 sustain 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.

Purple Carrot joins HelloFresh and Performance Food Group in rejecting coconut products from Thailand due to cruel monkey labor, and PETA is urging Whole Foods to follow suit.

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, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.