In 2019, PETA said they had found eight farms in Thailand where monkeys were forced to pick coconuts for exportation around the world. That year, PETA Asia investigators visited all of the farms in Thailand that exploited monkeys, including those for Chaokoh, as well as several monkey-training facilities and a coconut-picking competition. PETA said they witnessed monkeys pick coconuts for people and “documented that these sensitive animals were abused and exploited.” Laura Shields, PETA’s director of corporate responsibility, said in an interview with Axios, “Now the push is to just stop sourcing from Thailand entirely and source from other places that produce coconut milk without the use of monkeys, like the Dominican Republic, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and the Philippines.”