Teaching information failure is challenging because students must interpret and act on incomplete or competing information when making economic decisions. Food labeling provides a practical and intuitive context for examining imperfect information, signaling, and decision-making in food and agricultural markets. In a large-enrollment contemporary issues course in agricultural economics at a land-grant university, approximately 75 undergraduate students participated in a food labeling activity designed to assess how label complexity affects students’ ability to interpret information and apply economic reasoning. Students were randomly assigned to evaluate food products with either simplified or complex labels that varied in the amount and type of information presented. During a structured lab activity, students selected products and justified their choices using cost-benefit reasoning and tradeoff analysis. Pre- and post-activity measures were used to assess label interpretation accuracy, decision quality, perceived cognitive burden, and confidence. Differences across instructional conditions were analyzed using t-tests and analysis of variance methods. Initial results indicate that students exposed to simplified labels more accurately identified relevant economic information, made more consistent economic decisions, and reported lower cognitive burden than students exposed to complex labels. These findings suggest that instructional design choices related to information presentation can meaningfully influence student learning when teaching information failure and related topics in food and agricultural systems.