HelloFresh drops coconut milk from Thailand after Peta accused farms there of using MONKEYS as labor

The world’s leading meal kit provider HelloFresh will no longer use Thai-sourced coconut milk in its packages, the company announced Monday.

The vendor was responding to a PETA campaign and investigation into the use of pigtail monkeys to harvest coconuts in the country. PETA’s investigation, which began in 2019, found that a family of monkeys known as macaques were chained up and severely beaten as they spent hours picking the fruit.

According to the animal rights organization, HelloFresh received more than 100,000 emails from customers who were outraged by the use of monkey labor to obtain the milk found in food packages.

“HelloFresh’s decision will help protect monkeys from being kidnapped, chained and whipped in the coconut trade,” PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman said. The group previously described the use of jumpsuits as “rampant.”

“By cutting ties with Thai coconut suppliers, leaders like HelloFresh are helping PETA steer the industry away from the use and abuse of monkeys, who belong in the wild with their families,” Reiman added.

PETA’s investigation found that there were 57 coconut harvesting operations in a total of nine provinces in Thailand.

“HelloFresh strictly condemns any use of mono labor in its supply chain, and we take a tough stance not to buy from suppliers or sell coconut products found to use mono labor,” HelloFresh said in a statement. .

“We have written confirmation from all of our suppliers, in the US and around the world, that they do not engage in these practices,” the press release continued.

The two brands of Thai-sourced coconut milk used by HelloFresh are Aroy-D and Suree.

The overalls used on the farms were chained up, surrounded by trash, dirt and old car tires, according to PETA’s investigation.

A worker told the group that the average monkey spends around 10 years picking coconuts and is then left to live out the rest of its days in chains. The animals regularly injure themselves while picking coconuts.

Endangered monkeys are kidnapped in the wild from their families, PETA said.

The Thai government has rejected PETA’s claims about the widespread use of monkeys in coconut harvesting, reports The Guardian.

Speaking to The Guardian, Vincent Nijman, professor of anthropology and director of the Oxford Wildlife Trade Research Group at Oxford Brookes University, said the practice is limited to the southernmost part of Thailand.

He also said that the use of overalls was probably more common on smaller farms due to industry demands.

“The total volume that macaques could potentially harvest is small, certainly in light of the total number of coconuts that are harvested. The vast majority of coconut and coconut products do not come from pig-tailed macaque farms,” Nijman said.

According to the Guardian report, Thailand exported about 236,323 metric tons of coconut milk in 2021.

HelloFresh joins a growing list of US retailers that have halted the sale of products related to the monkeys’ work, along with Walmart, Costco, Target and Kroger.

British brands such as Sainsbury’s, Boots and Tesco have also announced bans. PETA’s campaign has drawn more attention after Carrie Symonds, the then-fiancée of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, publicly applauded it.

A day after the ban was announced, HelloFresh forecast 2023 earnings below analysts’ expectations on Tuesday, sending its shares tumbling as much as 12.7 percent as fewer people order their meal kits. in the reopening of economies and inflation cuts family budgets.

Meal kit and food delivery companies were among the big winners from the pandemic shutdowns, but with rising food and energy bills and people returning to offices, they face higher marketing costs to retain to the clients.

The company expects its number of active customers to decline slightly in the first half of 2023 before improving again in the second, after falling to 7.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2022 from 8 million in the third quarter.

HelloFresh said in a media call that it would focus on controlling costs and stabilizing its customer base as it aims to increase profitability.

“Price increases are a tool in our toolbox,” Chief Executive Dominik Richter said, but added that the company aimed to keep price increases below the general level of food price inflation.

He said HelloFresh was not planning any layoffs at this time and refrained from giving an update on the medium-term outlook.

In 2019, PETA Asia visited eight coconut farms, including the plantation where major brands source the fruit.

Videos posted on PETA’s website show tethered monkeys reclaiming trees to harvest coconuts.

The animal rights organization also claims to have obtained videos designed to train animals to kick the fruit until it falls off the branches.

PETA reopened its investigation in 2020 after claiming that government officials were negligent in addressing its findings.

“The coconut industry and the Thai government are doing nothing more than a cover up and may even have been quietly supporting the work of the monkeys,” PETA alleged.

The animal agency also claimed the monkeys were “abducted” as babies and “fitted with rigid metal collars and kept chained or tied up for extended periods.”

In addition, the monkeys had their teeth “knocked out” and to prevent the animals from retaliating against their keepers.

“If they don’t have tusks, we can wear them until they die,” a farmer told PETA Asia.

“By denying them the freedom to move, socialize with others, or do anything else that is important to them, these intelligent animals slowly lose their minds,” the organization wrote on its website.

PETA Asia investigators have reportedly discovered that the plantations also hide the use of overalls from auditors.