The Xiamen Symposium on Marine Environmental Sciences (XMAS 2025)

The evolution of ecolabels has led to many foods holding several certifications for environmental commitments. In the tuna market, dolphin-safe and the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) label dominate. This paper uses a novel dataset by linking Nielsen Retail Scanner data with “dolphin-safe” and MSC certification data to estimate the impact of carrying different number of ecolabels on canned tuna unit values from 2017 to 2019. A hedonic pricing model is applied to estimate the value of different attributes to tuna products. Our findings indicate positive price premiums for both dolphin-safe (12.65%) and MSC certified (23.67%) tuna. Moreover, dual-labeled products yield the highest price premiums (45.57%), suggesting that combining ecolabels can further enhance market value. Results also indicate that different factors lead to variations of price premiums, pointing to the need for tailored strategies in promoting sustainable seafood products.  
 

ecolabel, dolphin-safe tuna, canned tuna market, consumers