New PETA Ad Targets Kroger Over Coconut Milk Produced With Forced Monkey Labor

For Immediate Release:
November 12, 2020

Contact:
Nicole Meyer 202-483-7382

As part of its campaign to compel Kroger to reconsider its relationship with Thai brand Chaokoh—which a PETA Asia investigation revealed uses monkeys who are chained for life to pick coconuts—PETA is posting a billboard near a local Kroger store urging shoppers to leave the products of cruel monkey labor on the shelf.

PETA’s campaign to persuade Kroger to do the right thing includes sending deliveries of humanely picked coconuts to the company’s CEO and other top executives and enlisting Belinda Carlisle of The Go-Go’s—who lives in Thailand—to send a letter to Kroger in behalf of the monkeys.

“Every can of Chaokoh coconut milk on Kroger’s shelves harms the company’s reputation,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is calling on Kroger to reject its role in these monkeys’ misery and reconsider its relationship with the brand.”

PETA Asia’s investigation revealed that monkeys are chained, isolated from their peers, transported in cages, and forced to climb trees in order to collect coconuts day in and day out. The captive animals display stereotypic types of behavior, such as circling endlessly, that are indicative of severe mental anguish.

Costco recently told PETA that it would join the more than 25,000 stores around the world—including chains Walgreens, Giant, and Food Lion—that have pledged not to sell coconut products obtained through monkey labor. Kroger is one of the last remaining holdouts still selling cruelly produced coconut products.

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 or follow the group on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram.

The billboard is located at 5227 W. Washington St., at the intersection with S. Lynhurst Drive, just 0.2 miles from Kroger.