Eco-labels are crucial in helping consumers make sustainable food choices. However, previous literature has shown that eco-labels lack visibility and, frequently, are not easy for consumers to see. The main goal of the present study was to analyse the influence of aquaculture eco-labels’ visual elements—size and saliency—on consumers’ visual attention and choice. The study uses an eye-tracking methodology, together with a choice experiment and a semiotic analysis. A word association (WA) task was used to explore how each eco-label’s graphic design influenced consumers’ perceptions. Sixty-one consumers’ eye movements were tracked while choosing smoked salmon and seabass products carrying different eco-labels. The results showed that size and saliency largely influence visual attention. The choice of aquaculture products was influenced only by the size of the eco-labels. According to the WA task, the shape, the symbols and the language in which the claim was written influenced consumers’ preferences. The findings contribute to marketing and food research, suggesting which visual elements should be considered to increase consumers’ interest in eco-labels.

Given the increasing public interest in how ingredients are processed and the growing demand for organic food products, it is critical to understand consumers’ expectations about the process-related quality of organic products. Consumers perceive organic food to be nutritious, healthy and either natural or less processed, as they are afraid of the loss of nutritional, organoleptic and sensory properties of the food products. However, alternative food processing technologies might generate healthy and safe food options with nutritional quality properties. Simplified communication schemes might help to overcome this barrier for the consumer. The main objective of this study is to propose a working definition of “careful processing” for organic products and test its consistency through an experiment, while being used to rate different processing methods by consumers. Results show that the proposed definition allows the consumer to consistently rate alternative processing technologies. Consumers tend to score alternative processing technologies such as pulsed electric fields and microwaves as less careful, supporting the idea that organic consumers want as little man-made interference in their food products as possible. Results show that a simple but effective definition of careful processing may help consumers to distinguish more organic food products from conventional ones, no matter which communication scheme is used.