Chained Monkeys Forced to Pick Coconuts inThailand

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals claim that global food-delivery giant HelloFresh uses coconut milk obtained by monkey labor in Thailand. The animal-rights group this week posted its third report on Thailand’s coconut industry, “in which chained monkeys are forced to spend long hours climbing tall trees and picking heavy coconuts.”

For eight months, from December 2021 to July 2022, PETA Asia observed the monkey abuse, beginning with macaques snatched from their families in the wild when very young and trainable. The hapless creatures are beaten, choked, and chained up in squalid conditions; after training they are sold to coconut pickers where life gets even worse. 

“An employee at one farm investigators visited revealed that while the monkeys are climbing trees, they’re frequently bitten by ants and stung by hornets, which can be fatal,” and that the animals sometimes get broken bones when they fall – or are yanked – from the trees.

HelloFresh says the allegations can’t be true because they have written assurances from its suppliers that all labor is monkey-free. “HelloFresh strictly condemns any use of monkey labor in its supply chain,” the company said in a statement to CBS Moneywatch, “and we take a hard position of not procuring from suppliers or selling coconut products which have been found to use monkey labor.”

But according to PETA, two of HelloFresh’s milk suppliers – Suree and Aroy-D – have admitted to using monkey laborers. “A supplier to Suree kept monkeys chained on flooded land or trash-strewn patches of dirt with almost no protection from the elements, and a worker in Suree’s supply chain told investigators that the monkeys would be forced to pick coconuts for more than a decade before being ‘retired’— chained up for the rest of their lives.”

After PETA’s first two investigations into monkey exploitation, the Thai government and companies in the coconut industry claimed that monkeys were no longer used in the making of exported products. We’ll see what happens this time.

Watch PETA’s damning video at vimeo.com/752655426/da3c831ce7.

Photo credit: PETA Asia