Sustainably produced food products have rapidly grown in popularity within the last years. Eco-labeling systems to indicate the environmental sustainability of product have also been implemented in the seafood market, with the MSC label for wild fish as the leading one. However, it is not clear whether consumers really notice the values behind an eco-label and how important these attributes are in their purchasing decision. This study analyzes data from a large household scanner panel to investigate actual consumer purchasing behavior and preferences when faced with competing product attributes such as organic and MSC labeled for salmon in Denmark. To accomplish these objectives and explicitly account for consumer heterogeneity, a mixed logit as well as a latent class model is applied. The results indicate substantial consumer heterogeneity with respect to MSC-labeled wild salmon and organic labeled farmed salmon, with a negative preference on average. The latent class model reveals the picture. In total, we find 5 segments, where 3 segments have no preference for eco-labeled salmon at all. The study shows that there is approximately a combined 50% chance of a consumer belonging to one of the segments that have a preference for eco-labeled salmon
