Consumer preferences for country of origin labeling: Bridging the gap between research estimates and real-world behavior

Studies investigating preferences for country-of-origin labeling (COOL) often overemphasize this attribute, which risks inflating estimated market value. We address this issue by studying consumer preferences for Florida versus Mexico tomatoes in a shopping environment that allows freedom to notice or ignore COOL when making decisions. A significant portion of subjects failed to notice COOL in the study, despite expressing a preference for COOL and a habit of looking at COOL when shopping. We find a significant difference in preferences between subjects who noticed COOL and subjects who did not, which points to a potential mismatch between research results and real-world behavior.