PETA demonstrators in monkey masks disrupt CT Whole Foods opening. Here’s why
PETA demonstrators wearing monkey masks and black-and-white prison outfits dumped wheelbarrows full of coconuts outside of Whole Foods in South Windsor, protesting the grocery chain allegedly selling Thai coconut milk sourced from monkey labor.
Around 10 animal-rights demonstrators interrupted the grand opening ceremony for the store’s newest location in The Shops at Evergreen Walk. The demonstrators, hauling dozens of coconuts inside wheelbarrows with a painted-on logo that read “Cruel Foods,” were outside the store entrance when the doors opened to the public around 8 a.m. Wednesday.
Police quickly moved them off the property to the street. Whole Foods said it has investigated the claims and does not use products harvested with animal labor.
“We want Whole Foods to understand they need to stop supporting this abuse,” said Wendy Fernandez of Coral Springs, Fla., who traveled up to protest the grand opening. “They continue to sell coconut milk that comes from Thailand despite knowing the rampant abuse.”
The animal rights group is calling for a worldwide boycott of all Thai coconut products due to what it calls the rampant use of monkey labor in the industry. According to PETA investigators, monkeys in Thailand are often illegally snatched from their natural habitat as babies and subjected to a lifetime of captivity climbing trees to pick coconuts for long hours. The monkeys are chained, whipped and beaten to ensure they comply, reports say. PETA said many monkeys die each year from malnourishment and animal cruelty.
“Because they use monkey labor in Thailand, they don’t have to pay people to pick coconuts, which makes it a lot cheaper,” Fernandez said. “Whole Foods’ insistence on selling Thai coconut milk despite already selling coconut milk from brands sourced from other countries that don’t use monkey labor, just shows the company’s willful disregard for the wellbeing of animals.”
According to the group and other animals rights organizations, Thailand is the only country that uses forced monkey labor in the coconut industry. Other countries including Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Dominican Republic and the Philippines don’t use monkeys to gather coconuts. For eight months, from December 2021 to July 2022, PETA Asia took undercover video and recorded several interviews with Thai coconut farmers documenting the abuse.
Fernandez, a PETA international grassroots campaign organizer, said that she has protested around the country to raise awareness of forced monkey labor and to alert consumers to the ethics of the coconut industry in Thailand.
“We are urging consumers to not wait around for companies like Whole Foods to do the right thing,” Fernandez said. “When purchasing any coconut product, whether it’s in a can or box, we urge consumers to read the label. If it reads ‘product of Thailand’ keep it on the shelf.”
And the message has been working, according to the group.
Several large food companies, including Hello Fresh, Purple Carrot, and Performance Food Group, all stopped sourcing Thai coconut milk last year. The large grocery chain Publix dropped the product from their shelves in 2022 amid outrage.
“At every opening of Whole Foods we will be there to remind them that this is absolutely unacceptable,” said longtime animal-rights activist Rachel Ejsmont, who traveled up from Long Island, New York, to demonstrate Wednesday morning. “When you have so many alternatives and again still sell the same product, it shows the company’s absolute disregard. Why choose to continue to sell this product and support monkey abuse? We will be at every Whole Foods store and at every opening all over the U.S. until they stop selling this product.”
A spokesperson for Whole Foods said they take the matter seriously and launched an investigation into the issue in 2020 but did not find animal labor in its supply chain. The company also said it confirmed it did not source products from the supplier PETA listed in its undercover investigation.
“We take this issue seriously and have previously confirmed our private label suppliers do not use animal labor in producing these products. 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,” the company said in a statement.
Stephen Underwood can be reached at sunderwood@courant.com
