By The Guardian, Daily Mail and Sanook.com
MEAL kit provider HelloFresh, which is based in Berlin, Germany, said it will no longer sell coconut milk sourced from Thailand as it does not support any form of animal cruelty across its supply chain, the company announced on Monday (Mar. 6).
The move is in line with many brands in the West that have stopped selling some Thai coconut products over recent years after campaigning by Peta, which said that it had investigated Thai coconut farms and found chained monkeys that were forced to spend long hours climbing trees and picking coconut. Abuse of primates was “rampant”, the group has said.
It also called on Thai government officials to investigate the abuse of the monkeys at these coconut plantations.
According to the animal rights organisation, HelloFresh was besieged with more than 100,000 emails from customers who were outraged by the use of monkey labour in sourcing the milk found in the meal packages.
The Thai Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives said that in 2021 Thailand exported 236,323 tons of coconut milk valued at 12.8 billion baht.
The main export market for Thai coconuts is China.
HelloFresh’s decision will help protect monkeys from being kidnapped, chained, and whipped in the coconut trade, Peta Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said.
“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,” Reiman added.
CAPTIONS:
Top: A chained monkey forced to pick coconuts for hours. The Thai headline says, “Don’t torture monkeys.” Photo: Sanook.com
Front Page: Peta claimed farmers transported monkeys in “cramped cages” and took them off the farms when government officials came monthly for audits. Workers also told Peta Asia that the animals were not brought back to the farms in the “same truck” to avoid suspicion. Photo: Daily Mail
Also read: Kla Party says Peta’s monkey campaign ‘is culturally discriminatory’
Move to explain using monkeys to pick coconuts is Thai way of life
