Food quality – in particular when related to livestock production – cannot only rely on a claim for tradition anymore and has to be questioned vis-à-vis climate change, animal welfare, health or nutrition issues. Building on researches that we are currently carrying out on pig farming systems in Corsica, and taking over from previous works conducted on the same field from the 1970s on, we propose to question the role of researchers in accompanying the qualification process of typical food products. Over the last decades Corsican breeders and researchers have worked together towards the protection and promotion of traditional livestock systems with the inherited local breed through labelling schemes. Ten years after the recognition of these products and their specifications by a protected denomination of origin (PDO), our research sheds light on significant transformations and dysfunctions within the economic sector of pig farming on the island. Whereas breeding and butchery practices have changed and driven livestock systems away from what was defined as typical, many breeders denounce the excessive power of the organizations in charge of the label and the local breed that stands at the core of the disciplinary. This analysis claims for a critical perspective that we’ve tried to implement throughout a twofold approach. First, we contribute to the wording of criticism by gathering its different expressions through exit/voice/loyalty framework (Hirschman, 1972). Then, we attend to the forms of "embarrassment" (Barbier et Nadaï, 2015) that such situations can cause, when a discrepancy appears between economic, social, environmental and scientific issues. In doing so, we invite to discuss our positionings as researchers and the possibility of other kinds of synergies with social actors than the collaboration to codify products.