Hi Amy!
I stumbled upon our Trust Pilot review page this afternoon, I had no idea one existed! So I've claimed the profile, and now I can reply to you.
I don't delete any non 5 star reviews at all, I publish any reviews that I see coming in. We do get hundreds of spam 'reviews' that clog up the pending folder, and real reviews easily get lost in all that junk, which I think might've happened to your Smootch review, because I can't see it.
I'm sorry that us not responding to your reviews quickly enough prompted you to leave a less than glowing review here. From our perspective, like many other small vegan confectioners, such as Catherine's and Trupig, it's just the two of us trying to manage everything including production and processing orders. Unlike the bigger companies that have dedicated teams of staff to deal with reviews and customer services, we inevitably struggle to keep all the plates spinning, and dealing with reviews, any reviews, understandably drops to the bottom of the to-do list.
To give some context to the timing of your reviews, you posted them at the beginning of November, our busiest time of the year, but even busier than usual as we were also organising the relocation of our business. By the end of that month we'd stopped all production, and wouldn't be making anything until we were set up in our new premises several months later.
Your Treacle review was published when we started making Treacle again, which is when I updated the product page (and reviews), I did reply to your Treacle review as your review inspired me to use more treacle in the recipe!
As for your Dynamite review, I left that in the pending folder because we haven't made them since we moved out of our old premises last December, and haven't updated that product page since. I've published your review today regardless, because I hadn't considered that it could look like I'm editing which reviews get published.
We're not all about 'The Dupes', we make what we make with the view that we're creating something 'a bit like...'. Like our Rabbles are chewy caramel and peanuts in chocolate, and as such, have that taste of a Snickers bar, but they're far from a 'dupe' for a Snickers, they are their own thing. As for the almond flavour in the Almond Dynamite bar, I've relied on my 30+ year old memory of when I last had a Dime/Daim bar, and created something 'a bit' like it.
Thanks again for the nudge with the treacle, that was very constructive.