On Monday, Target became the last retailer to stop selling Chaokoh coconut milk, according to a statement from PETA. In recent months, the animal rights organization has led a boycott campaign against Chaokoh, claiming that it uses forced monkey labor to manufacture its product.
In the announcement, PETA executive vice president, Tracy Reiman, said: “PETA’s complaints confirmed that Thai coconut producers are exploiting monkeys and lying about it, so there is no excuse for any grocery store to keep Chaokoh on its shelves.” The organization applauded Target for joining “thousands of stores” that agreed to end relationships like Wegmans and Costco.
In a statement emailed to Gizmodo, a Target spokesman said: “We take the claims made against Chaokoh seriously and, as they were unable to sufficiently address the concerns raised, we made the decision to remove his product of our assortment in November 2020 ”
Chaokoh said USA Today in November who does not use monkey work and pointed to a third party audit that claimed to have randomly selected 64 of 817 coconut farms for inspection and found no monkeys picking coconuts.
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PETA’s accusations stem from multiple investigations conducted in the coconut harvest regions of Thailand. He reported that these coconut farms take monkeys from their mothers when they are young, give them rigid metal collars and chain them. The monkeys are then trained to climb the trees in their general area and pull the coconuts for collection. Monkeys that resist their captors have their canine teeth removed. According to the investigation, some monkeys are forced to keep two jobs, as their owners force them to participate in “circus shows”. (Video of the monkeys can be seen here, but animal lovers should be warned that it’s a real drag.)
PETA says that Brazil, Colombia, Hawaii and some other regions do very well producing coconuts, without forcing monkeys to make their offers, and maintains a brand list that produce coconut water ethically. The activist organization said it is now turning its attention to putting pressure on a shortening list from retailers this says you’re resisting.