NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- PETA has sent a letter to Wegmans asking the grocery store chain to stop selling products manufactured by a brand the animal rights organization claims uses “forced monkey labor” to harvest coconuts.
In a letter sent to Wegmans CEO Colleen Wegman on Monday, PETA called the chain “one of the few holdouts still selling” Chaokoh brand coconut milk.
Monkeys in Thailand, PETA claimed, are “chained, transported in cages, and forced to climb trees in order to collect coconuts,” adding that “more than 25,000 other stores… have pledged not to purchase products from any company that depends on forced monkey labor.”
Wegmans currently sells cans of Chaokoh Coconut Milk for $2.29 each, its website shows.
“Coconuts are sweet, but the ways in which monkeys in Thailand are deprived and exploited to pick them is anything but,” PETA President Ingrid Newkirk said in a statement. “Smart, sensitive primates don’t deserve to be subjected to bitter lives of forced labor.”
1010 WINS has reached out to Wegmans for comment on PETA’s letter.
Last month, Thai Commerce Minister Jurin Laksanawisit denied PETA’s allegations that the country is mistreating monkeys, saying the monkeys are mainly present at coconut harvesting sites as a tourist attraction, and are not mistreated.
“There is a difference between coconut harvesting using monkeys because of tradition or for tourism, and coconut harvesting on an industrial scale,” he told the Associated Press. “It is not profitable to use monkeys at the industry level.”
“They have tools and methods to pick coconuts that are efficient and more profitable,” he added.