HelloFresh Under Fire: Suppliers Caught Forcing Chained Monkeys to Pick Coconuts

14 November 2022

Sydney – A new PETA Asia investigation released today has revealed that delivery giant HelloFresh uses coconut milk obtained through monkey labour in Thailand, where the animals are chained, whipped, beaten, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts. Investigators visited 57 operations and documented that the animals were being abused and exploited at each one, prompting PETA to call on everyone who subscribes to HelloFresh to cancel their membership until the company moves its sourcing outside of Thailand and not to buy any coconut milk products manufactured in the country due to the rampant abuse.

Photos from the investigation are available here, and video footage is available here. Broadcast-quality footage is available upon request.

Brokers to HelloFresh’s coconut milk suppliers Aroy-D and Suree showed investigators that monkeys were being exploited to pick coconuts and that at a supplier to Suree, monkeys were chained on rubbish-strewn patches of dirt and flooded areas, with car tyres as their only “shelter” from the elements. One worker told investigators that the monkeys would be forced to pick coconuts for more than a decade and then spend the rest of their lives on a chain.

PETA Asia’s new exposé also implicates coconut pickers, brokers, farms, and monkey-training operations in nine provinces, including top-producing ones. A trainer was documented striking a screaming monkey, dangling him by the neck, and then whipping 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 incur broken bones from falling out of trees or from being yanked down, and a worker confirmed that most monkeys are kidnapped from their families in nature, even though the species exploited by the coconut trade are threatened or endangered.

“PETA is calling on everyone – including HelloFresh – to stop buying coconut milk sourced from Thailand until monkeys are no longer used and abused for profit,” says PETA campaigns advisor Mimi Bekhechi. “It’s unconscionable for companies like HelloFresh to continue to support an industry in which chained monkeys are forced to work.”

In addition to Suree and Aroy-D, PETA Asia’s investigation links monkey labour to Chaokoh and Ampol Food (whose parent company is Theppadungporn Coconut Co), Cocoburi, Tropicana Oil, Thai Pure, Ampawa, Edward & Sons Trading Co, and many other brands.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat” – opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.au and follow the group on Facebook and Instagram.