TRENOS SiGINT: It’s All a Matter of Perception (Why 'Vegan Still Trips People Up)

Analyst: Scott Mathias December 2025

Signal:

The global move away from the word “vegan” reflects a deep shift in how consumers perceive identity-linked food choices. Viral social proof shows that taste bias isn’t sensory, it’s psychological. Anonymous plant-based products routinely outperform animal-based benchmarks when the vegan label is removed, indicating that terminology, not technology, is the barrier. This is reshaping branding, menu engineering, and front-of-pack strategy across major markets.

Human Factor:

Consumers don’t want to feel judged, categorised, or tricked, they simply want food aligning with their sense of self. The moment “vegan” feels like a lifestyle rather than a flavour cue, resistance shows up. Humans chase belonging before they chase nutrition, which explains why the same food can be delicious or “tastes like beans” depending on the story wrapped around it.

TRENOS Metrics Snapshot

Field	Data
Signal	Declining use of “vegan” label; shift toward “plant-based,” “animal-free,” and no-label menus
Data Point	Viral behavioural experiments, competition results, brand relabelling shifts
TikTok Views	Viral videos in this category routinely exceed 5M–20M views
Retail Footprint	Major UK, EU, and US brands removing the word “vegan” from packaging to boost sales
Ingredient Format	Plant-based meats, alt-dairy, pastries, mixed-protein hybrid formats
Product Range	Burgers, chilli, desserts, pastries, everyday ready-meals
Consumer Segment	Flexitarians, curious omnivores, Gen Z identity-driven eaters
Brand Origin	Global – strongest activity in UK, US, Scandinavia
Export Status	High — plant-based products often exported without vegan cues
Trend Classification	Behavioural psychology > Sensory shift
System Pressure Point	Identity bias, cultural friction, label fatigue
Momentum	High — accelerated by social media behaviour studies
Sentiment	Mixed: curiosity + defensiveness
Where Signal Is Loudest	TikTok, Instagram Reels, restaurant menus, fast-casual chains
Related Links	challenge22.com; various media on blind-taste wins; brand relabelling case studies

Long Play Analysis - It’s All a Matter of Perception (Vegan vs Plant-Based Labelling Shift)

The real signal here isn’t about vegan food at all, it’s about how people self-categorise. Food has always been a tribal marker, and “vegan” has become a lightning rod: too moral for some, too political for others, too culturally loaded for most. Brands learned the hard way that labels trigger identity defences faster than flavours win taste buds. So the quiet industry move away from the V-word isn’t retreat, it’s strategy.

Globally, this is fuelling a rise in “stealth plant-based”, products that are animal-free but simply marketed as “delicious,” “creamy,” “crispy,” or “chef-made.” The irony is this mirrors how lactose-free, gluten-free, or halal foods entered the mainstream: normalisation happens fastest when the label becomes optional, not mandatory. Sensory parity is largely solved where-as semantic parity is the last battlefield.

Long term, expect brands, retailers, and regulators to reframe plant-based foods around benefit-led language (protein, performance, flavour, affordability, sustainability) rather than identity-led labels. The consumer journey is shifting from “Am I vegan?” to “Do I like this?”, a deceptively simple change that could accelerate alt-protein adoption far more than the industry’s last ten years of evangelism.

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