Vegans ‘target gourmet farm shop with fake negative reviews in bid to ruin five-star rating’

A gourmet farm shop has had its unblemished five-star rating tainted by vegan activists leaving fake negative reviews. 

The Gourmet Goat Farmer, in the village of Avebury, Wiltshire, was targeted last month and has since seen its rating fall. 

It came after an activist posted on the 657-member private Facebook group Vegan Wiltshire urging people to leave negative reviews on the larder and cafe’s page.

It read: ‘Can we have some negative reviews on this place, please? There’s no way an animal farm should be able to enjoy a five-star rating.’ 

A torrent of abuse has since followed, with fake negative reviews, with one person writing: ‘Good people do not use, abuse, harm, exploit and kill innocent Animals. I hope life treats the owner of this place, the same way they treat the Animals. 

The Gourmet Goat Farmer owner Laura Corbett has hit out at ‘keyboard warriors’ who left fake negative reviews to cause its unblemished five-star rating to fall

The larder and cafe is based in the village of Avebury, Wiltshire, and boasts that ‘the welfare of our beautiful animals are at the heart of everything we do’

‘Eat plants, not beings.’

While another blasted it as a ‘disgusting place’ and ‘just a bunch of nasty little animal abusers’.  

The farm shop boasts that ‘the welfare of our beautiful animals are at the heart of everything we do’. 

‘Our goats live a healthy, free range life here on the Marlborough Downland, grazing ancient pastures and socialising naturally as part of a herd,’ a message on its website reads. 

The farm’s owner Laura Corbett, was alerted to the fake reviews last month when a couple of ‘kind’ people private messaged her.

She even offered to give the activists a tour of the farm, but none turned up on the scheduled time and date, The Telegraph reported.

She wrote: ‘I am slightly worried that my own post about THIS post will only make me a further target, but I’d thought I’d do it anyway!

A message on the farm shop’s website says: ‘Our goats live a healthy, free range life here on the Marlborough Downland, grazing ancient pastures and socialising naturally as part of a herd’ 

Ms Corbett offered to give the activists a tour of the farm, but none turned up on the scheduled time and date

‘I the Gourmet Goat Farmer would only be more than happy to spend a couple of hours with any Vegan from Wiltshire or elsewhere, this Wednesday 16th August at 4pm, to give them a tour of our farm and share and answer any questions they have.

‘I worry greatly for Vegans and their long term health and would like to do anything I can to broaden their knowledge of farming.’

Ms Corbett told The Telegraph: ‘They’re keypad warriors and they’re not listeners.’

She said the negative reviews had caused stress with her son going to bed worrying ‘that they were going to turn up at the door’. 

Mo Metcalf-Fisher, a director at the Countryside Alliance, said: ‘Cases such as this show why soliciting targeted harassment of law-abiding business owners and employees through malicious fake reviews should be an offence.

‘The Government must listen to the small businesses that are being victimised, and protect their wellbeing and livelihoods from these cranks.’