I share some of the concerns of the author, but I think she's failing to "never ascribe to malice ..." -- in this case "when there are a myriad of other, less malicious reasons that are probably the cause."

I suspect the biggest reason companies are choosing "plant-based" (and including "vegan" somewhere less prominent, or maybe not at all) is because they want their products to appeal to both vegans and non-vegans. In fact, they may be making products that don't appeal at all to vegans despite being vegan, but would appeal to non-vegans.

First -- non-vegans -- if I see "Vegan" on something, I won't buy it unless it would only ever come that way (or would typically come that way, like a salad). If it's a "Vegan Burger", I'm assuming it's a piece of minced paper mixed with soy/plant oils and packed with enough herbs "used for grilling" to make it taste like "burnt grilled something" attempting to hide the fact that it tastes nothing like beef. If it's cheese, I assume it won't melt. It'll kind-of melt, then it'll start to harden, brown, and catch fire. If it's chicken, it's probably not vegan, but vegetarian (which are actually very good), but if it's vegan, it'll be ... wrong ... I don't know how to describe it.

I was Lacto Ovo Vegetarian for a year (for health, not puppies). I tried every single vegetarian pretend-to-be-meat product that Whole Foods and Kroger sold (in 2005). Amazingly, I found a brand of sausage that almost passed if you squinted at it just so. The vegetarian (non-vegan, I think) Morningstar Farms "plant-based" chicken was better than the frozen "real" chicken equivalents a few doors over. Everything else was inedible if it was trying to be meat. I like Black Bean burgers and Portabello Mushroom burgers, but you have to season/prepare them as that kind of product. When they tried to turn it into "something beef like", it was a disaster.

Fast forward to today where we have burgers that are "plant-based" that have the right texture, taste and even bleed. I don't know if my set is skewed or if this is normal but every Vegan I know (out of about 6) is vegan for their own moral, not health, reasons. Not one of them liked the meat-substitute products that I liked. They think eating animals is disgusting and it makes the flavor/texture gross to them. I'd imagine a plant-based burger that bleeds would have a similar impact.

So marketing to vegans with "Vegan" prominently on the label (and any required certification/testing/other necessities to ensure you don't get a class-action by accident) and there's a good chance your actual market avoids the product right along with the vegans who don't want it (unless it stops you from eating meat, you can have that crutch. :P).

> I used to hate the phrase “plant-based” because I thought it was a cute way of avoiding saying vegetarian or vegan, as well as all the cultural baggage that comes with those identifiers (and I do believe some cultural baggage here can be a mark of honor).

And there's the last little nugget. To those that "Vegan" doesn't mean "Soy Pretending to be Meat and So Not Pulling it Off", it elicits images of judgemental people being vocal (in passive-aggressive ways) about the smell of the rare, juicy, Ribeye on the plate in front of me.

"Plant-based" might be "Vegan except LARD" or might be "Vegan except some ingredient with an unpronounceable name that is an animal byproduct" (gelatin/glue). It probably means the latter in most cases and that's fine for the people they're marketing to.