Food eco-labels are a way to utilize consumer interactions within the market to create demand for more sustainable food production. This is important because climate change is drastically altering the way in which agriculture uses land and water resources, which means that more sustainable use of these and other resources must be developed quickly. There are, however, limitations to the extent to which consumers interact with food eco-labels and purchase the products that feature them with an example of this being the attitude-behavior gap, in which while consumers may place value on food eco-labels, their purchasing behavior does not reflect those values (Bray et. al, 2011). Student consumers are an often understudied demographic despite the large and unique populations they make up in the places where universities and colleges exist. This study examined the ways in which student consumers are influenced by food labels when purchasing food products. Through the use of a survey, quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed in R Studio using a logistic regression model. The main findings were that although perceived valuation was the primary factor in consumers’ purchasing behavior, this was limited by consumers’ willingness to pay more for food labels which was dependent on their level of food label knowledge and financial security. These findings are representative of a complex argument that student consumers can behave differently from nonstudent populations of consumers. This study suggests that a high valuation of food eco-labels does in fact correspond to students purchasing those labels more frequently, which may suggest that the attitude-behavior gap is smaller among student populations than among other consumers. This study has implications for further research, which could illustrate more specific ways for how to market eco-labels toward student consumers and increase demand at the food production level for sustainability to create positive environmental change. </p
