Victory! Andre Prost Drops Coconut Milk Tied to Monkey Labor Following PETA Asia Investigation
For Immediate Release:
January 2, 2025
Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382
In a significant win for animals, locally-based food distributor Andre Prost—owner of the popular coconut milk brand A Taste of Thai, which is sold throughout North America—is no longer using Thai coconuts following PETA Asia investigations revealing that endangered monkeys are chained, whipped, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts from trees. Based on PETA’s recommendation, Andre Prost has chosen to only source from coconut milk producer Chef’s Choice Foods, which cut ties with farms in Thailand and switched to only processing coconuts from other countries where monkeys aren’t forced to pick coconuts after hearing from PETA.
“This decision will help prevent monkeys from being kidnapped from their forest homes and families, chained, and forced to work as coconut-picking machines,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “By cutting ties with Thai coconut suppliers, leaders like Andre Prost are helping PETA push the industry away from using and abusing monkeys, who belong in nature with their families.”
In Thailand’s coconut industry, endangered pig-tailed macaques are illegally abducted from their families and homes when they’re just babies. They are kept chained in isolation, often without proper food, water, or shelter from the elements, and denied everything that’s important to them. PETA Asia’s third of four investigations 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.
Andre Prost joins dozens of other companies and brands—including Good & Gather (Target’s private-label brand), Goya, Lidl, Raley’s, Trader Joe’s, and Vita Coco—that don’t source coconuts from Thailand or have rejected coconuts obtained by monkey labor. In November 2024, PETA ended its nearly two-year-long campaign against Whole Foods after PETA’s own investigators and negotiators worked tirelessly to eliminate forced monkey labor from the grocery giant’s supply chain.
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 PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
