St Helen's deletes social media following public backlash
St Helen's Farm appears to have given up on social media completely, no doubt reeling from the backlash they received following the Far Marsh Farm goat abuse scandal. When your products are taken off the shelves of all but one of the major UK supermarket chains, and your reputation has been forever tarnished, what else would you do but try to start again?
Rather than address our open letter - sent by registered post to all the directors of Far Marsh Farm, Yorkshire Dairy Goats, St Helen’s Farm and Kavli UK, plus the Group CEO of Kavli Holding A/S - and roundly ignoring overwhelming public and celebrity support, plus a protest by local activists outside Far Marsh Farm on August 22, we are still being ignored. St Helen’s seems to believe that best thing to do is make it impossible for the public to hold them to account.
In some ways it is encouraging news - online actions conducted by supporters of our campaign and re-homing appeal have clearly made it so difficult for St Helen’s to maintain a positive profile on the internet that they’ve had no choice but to call it a day.
Even though a goat has yet to be given his or her freedom, we can consider this a small win. In this modern world in which image is everything, St Helen’s no longer has a way to present its ‘best self’ to the online community. They have no safe haven, other than their main website, which coincidentally was taken offline the day of the Far Marsh Farm protest.
Needless to say, a brand without social media in today's world is no brand at all, so we'll be keeping a close eye on St Helen's to see when those accounts will re-appear. You can help by monitoring goat milk hashtags and other related social media for signs that the St Helen's communications team is feeling brave again.
Correspondences from supermarkets, forwarded to us by supporters, have also revealed that St Helen’s other farms are now all ‘Red Tractor Approved’. As a result, supermarkets seemingly feel comfortable restocking their products. However, we all know that ‘Red Tractor Approved’ means nothing for the animals, and that this label is simply a marketing ploy to sell products made from exploitation and suffering. No welfare standard could ever go far enough, as we stand vehemently against any form of needless animal use, let alone abuse.
We wish we could bring you far better news, and that St Helen’s would do the right thing finally and get back in touch with us - but perhaps it is more than we can expect from a company that views innocent animals as nothing more than milk machines to exploit and kill.
Thank you for continuing to follow this campaign and our re-homing appeal.
Surge Team
