Good News Everyone

I feel like it's a difficult thing to measure, because like you said, the OG vegans are just eating a plant-based diet of whole foods. Veggies/greens, rice, beans lentils, nuts, grains, tofu etc... which health-conscious meat eaters will also eat. Must be hard to get the signal from the noise there. I would imagine that meat replacement type products would be more faddish and less stable because they're often popular with those trying to transition to a plant-based diet.

Plus, these foods are just kind of weird IMO, and way more expensive than just eating a regular diet of plants. They're not going to do well when consumer sentiment is shaky at best.

Disclaimer: I'm not vegan myself, just spent some time in the food industry (organic/natural foods in particular).