07 July, 2011 – New research shows that retailers in the UK are achieving a price premium of more than 14 percent, and obtaining higher sales, for products bearing the Marine Stewardship Council eco-label.
The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural Economics, is the first to show not only what factors make it more likely for consumers to buy eco-labeled seafood products but evidence that consumers value the positive environmental attributes of MSC-labeled products highly enough to pay a premium for them.
The study examined scanner data for sales of 24 frozen pollock products in a selection of London metropolitan area supermarkets over a period of 65 weeks from 2007 to 2008. Twelve of those products displayed the MSC label. After adjusting for differences arising from other product attributes such as branding, product form and size, the study identified a price difference of 14.2 percent between MSC products and non-labeled pollock products.
Sales of the MSC products were also high, at 3.3 million units, during the period, more than non-labeled products at 3.03 million units.
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