I have been having discussions in my local grocery store with the clerks (not with management so it isn't going anywhere) about their habit of spreading specific vegan/vegetarian products all over the store instead of keeping them in one location so that we know they are there.
Yeah, that is grocery store's for you.
I've decided to be optimistic (for a change) and see this as a good sign. Yea! we are moving forward.
Yes, there is a certain convenience of putting the "vegan food" all in one place. The big west coast Supermarket chain, Safeway, tends to do that. they have a refrigerated endcap near the produce with tofu and fake cheeses and fake cold cuts. Maybe some hotdogs, too. Most of the rest of the stuff is in the freezer aisle. My little grocery store has the same kind of thing but smaller between the eggs and the milk. However, the fake eggs is next to the eggs and the fake cream cheese is next to the cream cheese. (oh, I think Safeway also does this).
So one way of looking at it is that the fake eggs and fake cream cheeses have become mainstream. And that is good. Putting beyond meat with the real meats may be a sign of the same thing but it also may have to do with packaging. I read in a blurb something from another new alt meat company that they went with a type of packaging that required it to be in the frozen food section. the type of packaging that was required for the chilled section was not environmentally friendly, i.e. more plastic, more waste. So they just went frozen only.
"vegan foods" getting mainstreamed is probably good for everybody but the traditional food companies. Although someone might buy one by accident and end up liking it, its maybe even more likely that someone shopping for cream cheese might see the Miyoko's kitchen cream cheese and decide to give it a try.
But yeah, the same thing happened to me. I was looking for some fake cream cheese and it wasn't with the other fake cheeses. it was with the cream cheese.
And I really should start using a better word than "fake".