Say My Name & Why Calling Your Alt-Protein Product the Wrong Thing Could Kill It Stone Cold

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Let’s cut to the chase, naming your product in the alt-protein sector isn’t a branding decision, it’s a survival strategy. Get it right, and you’re dinner-table royalty. Get it wrong, and you’re just another cardboard-textured meat clone haunting the bottom shelf.

Michael Fox, CEO and Co-Founder of Australian mushroom-meat darling Fable Food Co (shown below), knows this all too well. In late 2022, Fox was riding high on an US$8.5 million Series A. Fast forward six months? Three major customers ghosted, and two-thirds of revenue evaporated. The issue? The product hadn’t changed. Only the name had.

The mushroom messiah moment came during a food court experiment in Brisbane. Fable partnered with Las Catrinas, a Mexican eatery at Eat Street Markets, and trialled eight different menu names for the exact same dish over six months. The results were staggering. “Shiitake Carnitas” pulled in 8% of total sales. “Pulled ‘Beef’” barely registered at 1%. That’s a 700% swing based solely on the label. This wasn’t a rebrand, it was a resurrection.

Why the dramatic difference? Because consumers aren’t interested in culinary cosplay. They don’t want to decode a menu or feel tricked into a vegan agenda. “Mushroom” tells them what they’re getting. “Shiitake” suggests richness, umami, and something real. “Plant-based beef”? That just sounds like compromise dressed up in quotation marks.

Science backs this up. A 2023 study in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management found Chinese consumers had a strong preference for names like “plant-based meat” or “vegetarian meat” over “artificial meat.” The conclusion? Words matter. The wrong ones trigger suspicion. The right ones generate trust.

The same pattern emerges across Western markets. A recent ScienceDirect study showed plant-based cookies, cheeses, and sausages all received better ratings when described with straightforward, familiar terms. “Lentil roll” beats “vegan sausage.” “Oat milk chocolate chip” wins over “non-dairy confectionery.” People don’t want to be tricked. They want to know what they’re eating and maybe even feel a little clever for choosing it.

Source: Fable Food Co Shitake Mushroom - Skewers, Burger Pattie, Pizza and Asian

It’s not just naming, it’s menu psychology. ProVeg International has long warned against sticking vegan items in a separate “plant-based ghetto” on menus. Their advice is simply integrate plant-based options into the main list and use names whetting the appetite, not trigger dietary defensiveness. “Chargrilled Shiitake with Black Garlic” performs. “Vegan BBQ” flops. Because flavour wins, not virtue signalling.

And then there’s label clarity - the retail battlefield. According to the National Consumers League, product names like “soy burger” or “pea protein nuggets” build consumer confidence, while over-engineered names and obscure alt-protein acronyms send shoppers running. Plant-based eaters might be curious, but they’re also cautious. If your label reads like a science project, it’s going back on the shelf.

Back at Fable, the shiitake revival saved the day. The naming experiment didn’t just provide a data point, it became their new strategy. With clarity and confidence in naming, they won back a major account and grew top-line revenue by 50% the following year. Today, Fable leans proudly into mushroom-forward branding with menu items like “BBQ Shiitake Burnt Ends” and “Shiitake Teriyaki.” No apologies. No quotation marks. Just mushroom-forward, flavour-first food that performs.

The lesson? Don’t name your food like it’s ashamed of itself. The obsession with imitating meat has taken the sector off course. It’s time to embrace what makes plant-based special, not disguise it. People already love mushrooms, lentils, oats, and tempeh. So why dress them up as something they’re not?

If you’re working on the next alt-protein sensation, here’s the only rule mattering and this is, name it like you mean it. Or prepare to watch it die slowly under a layer of sad quotation marks and lukewarm sales reports.

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