Morrissey Lands in Washington and Lands on Jeff Bezos Over Whole Foods’ Coconut Milk Sales

For Immediate Release:
October 16, 2023

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

As Morrissey arrives in the nation’s Capitol on his sold-out U.S. tour, The Smiths frontman dispatched word to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel today urging them to please please please stop selling coconut milk from Thailand where monkeys are kept in servitude and trained with violence and privation to pick coconuts as revealed in multiple PETA Asia investigations.

Morrissey fumed: “PETA has sent Whole Foods top executives three separate investigations into the Thai coconut industry that have documented appalling cruelty to monkeys: most chained by their necks, kept in solitude, exposed to all weather without shelter, some having their teeth pulled out, all trained with appalling violence, and all forced to spend their lives climbing tall trees to twist off heavy coconuts.… These are our fellow primates with feelings greater than those Whole Foods management has shown. You have these monkeys’ misery on your hands, and I urge you to do something ethical now…. Please decide to sell only coconut milk sourced from outside Thailand.

Monkeys are forced to toil in Thailand’s coconut industry. Photo: PETA Asia

Because the coconut 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 is calling on Whole Foods to sell coconut milk only from countries where monkey labor isn’t used, such as India, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to abuse in any way”—opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org, listen to The PETA Podcast, or follow the group on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or Instagram.

Morrissey’s letter to Bezos and Buechel follows.

October 16, 2023

Dear Messrs. Bezos and Buechel:

I was aghast to hear that Whole Foods has so far refused to do the humane thing and switch away, as it easily could, from selling coconut milk from Thailand where monkeys are forced into servitude. These are our fellow primates with feelings greater than those Whole Foods management has shown. You have these monkeys’ misery on your hands and I urge you to do something ethical now, to act as if Whole Foods “standard of excellence” is not a cruel joke.

PETA has sent Whole Foods top executives three separate investigations into the Thai coconut industry that have documented appalling cruelty to monkeys: most chained by their necks, kept in solitude, exposed to all weather without shelter, some having their teeth pulled out, all trained with appalling violence, and all forced to spend their lives climbing tall trees to twist off heavy coconuts. Some monkeys have fallen from great heights.

Please decide to sell only coconut milk sourced from outside Thailand. Please may I hear from you?

Sincerely,

Morrissey