Grocery chain pushed to follow Costco’s lead and sever ties with monkey labor coconut milk brand
For immediate release:
August 31, 2021
Contact:
Brooke Rossi 202-483-7382
Baltimore – Special delivery and letter (in English and Korean) from PETA on the way to the CEO of Korean food chain Lotte Plaza Market Son Lee: a bunch of fresh, humanely received coconuts. The delivery comes after Costco and other major retailers stopped selling the Thai brand Chaokoh, which PETA Asia’s investigation found uses coconuts harvested by chained monkeys.
“Lotte Plaza Market continues to sell coconut milk made from coconuts harvested in Thailand by monkeys who are chained, separated from their peers, distraught and forced to work long hours,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA urges Lotte Plaza Market to stop being a coconut.nuts and say, “Goodbye!” in Chaoko “.
In addition to Costco offices, more than 33,000 stores around the world, including Giant, Kroger, Target and Safeway, have stopped selling Chaokoh coconut milk due to its link to forced monkey labor.
PETA’s motto, in particular, is that “animals are not ours to abuse them in any way,” and the group opposes racism, a worldview based on human superiority. PETA also sent coconuts and letters to executives of other dissenting companies, including Publix and Walmart, asking them to reconsider their dealings with Chaokoh.
For more information please visit PETA.org or subscribe to the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram…
PETA Lee’s letter follows.
Dear Mr. Lee:
Greetings from PETA. We applaud Lotte Plaza Market for offering delicious vegan recipes to your customers on your website, and we now strongly encourage you to take action on the issue that is bothering them. We sent you these coconuts in the hope of finally hack dialogue on redefining your business relationship with Chaokoh, a brand that participated in PETA Asia’s recent investigation into the use of chain monkeys in Thailand’s coconut industry.
PETA Asia’s investigation reveals that Chaokoh is part of an industry that makes monkeys – imprisoned for life, sometimes with extracted teeth, always chained and often maddened by the fact that they are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them – to climb trees to collect coconuts. It seems that most (if not all) of these animals are illegally taken from the forest in infancy. Their training is extremely offensive.
Please visit PETA.org/Coconuts watch secret footage.
More than 25,000 other stores, including Costco, have pledged not to buy items from Chaokoh.
We hope you take action and take cruel coconut products off your shelves. May we hear from you soon?
Yours sincerely,
Ingrid Newkirk
The president