Illy Espressamente Coffee Shop in Saigon: Shark fin trade supporter

It's a Illy coffee shop, but be careful: With every coffee you also support the shark fin trade.

It's just another sad story about money and careless people. Someone apparently got the Lilly Espressamente Coffee Shop Licence and opened a shop at Ly Tu Trong Street in Hoh Chi Minh City (Saigon). It's the typical Espressamente shop, nice italian style modern furniture, a lot of different coffee choices, even some food. (oh, and not geek friendly: no power plugs)

So far so good.

Unfortunately thats just part of the story. The owner - based on what the staff told me - owns also the restaurant next door: The Thai Finest Shark Fin restaurant. Even the VIP card is valid for both places. So the profit they may make with the Illy restaurant goes in the same pocket like the money they make with the shark fin restaurant.

In my opinion the only way to make a clear statement is to avoid to go to the Illy Espressamente Coffee shop there and to show the owner, that he really has to think about what he is doing.

I am really surprised about this facts and asked Illy HQ for a statement, why the make business with people who support shark fin trade. I am waiting for the response and will publish it here.

Some people may say, shark fin is a asian tradition. Sure it is. But tradition doesn't mean we have to like or accept it. On Fijii it was a tradition to eat other people - luckily they stopped it. In Afrika it's a tradition to cut females genitals - and the world community is fighting for a stop. In Europe they burnt witches - thank god they don't do it anymore.

To get a shark fin, the hunters just catch the shark, cut the fin and throw the body while the shark is still alive back in to the water. This finning just one of the most cruel ways to kill a animal. The shark is not able to swim anymore and is sinking to the ground and drowning and blooding.

And it's just stupid because they don't care about the sustainability. some places where sharks lived before are already deserted. Sharks are on top of the food chain - if you kill them, other fishes will get overpopulated and that might have a big effect on the ecosystem - something we are not able to control anymore. Every year 73 million sharks are killed. The shark population is declining - about 80 percent in the last 50 years.

Oh, and don't tell me about the medical impact of shark fin. It's just a rumor, short dick men use it as a excuse.