NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – Demonstrators from PETA – and an inflatable, crying monkey – lined a new Whole Foods Market in Jersey City on Thursday to protest the company’s sale of coconut milk made in Thailand.
“When Whole Foods opened its doors in Jersey City, PETA was there with a giant inflatable monkey chained to a coconut to alert shoppers that the store sells coconut milk from Thailand, where monkeys are kidnapped and then chained, whipped, and forced to spend long hours picking coconuts,” PETA Senior Manager of Demo Campaigns Tricia Lebkuecher said.
Protestors also held signs with images of chained monkeys and messages like “Thai Coconut Milk: Forced Monkey Labor,” “Cruel Foods” and “Whole Foods Sells Coconut Milk From Cruel Monkey Labor.”
According to PETA officials, endangered pig-tailed macaques are abused into submission, forced to work picking coconuts and subjected to a low quality of life.
Several companies with coconut milk brands sold in Whole Foods were named by industry workers as using monkey labor in product sourcing, and “Because the industry and the Thai government lie about their systemic reliance on forced monkey labor, it’s impossible to guarantee that any coconut milk from Thailand is free of it,” PETA officials claim.
“Whole Foods continues to sell coconut products implicated in PETA Asia’s investigation, which is especially shameful for a company that claims to care about animals,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said.
This is a cause that PETA consistently brings attention to through protest, with demonstrations occurring as recently and locally as a protest outside of the One Wall Street location of Whole Foods Market on Oct. 4.
“Store employees respected our right to protest, and we gave out hundreds of leaflets and had many conversations with passersby about how Whole Foods could easily obtain coconut milk from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, or many other countries that don’t rely on forced monkey labor,” Lebkuecher said.
“We take this issue seriously and have previously confirmed our private label suppliers do not use animal labor in producing these products,” Whole Foods Market said in a statement to 1010 WINS/WCBS 880.
“We have reinvestigated this issue out of an abundance of caution and have again confirmed that coconuts from Thailand used in these products are harvested without the use of animal labor,” Whole Foods Market added.