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In several agri-food sectors in Europe, firms and producers' organizations involved in quality labeling based on official certifications have been repeatedly criticized or even condemned by antitrust authorities for anti-competitive practices. This raises the question of the compatibility between quality policy for agri-food products as developed in Europe and antitrust law. Should we consider that the only or even the principal aim of the collective organizations managing these public labels is to reduce actual or potential competition? This paper sheds some light on this issue through a detailed analysis of the public label Red Label, which is widely used in the French poultry industry. We take issue with the economic analysis made by the antitrust authorities and suggest an alternative explanation. In particular, we argue that, individual firms involved in these collective systems try to organize themselves in order to mitigate the costs related to the management of quality all along the vertical chain. We also show that market governance is unable to promote or enforce the quality of products or the credibility of the label. The main reason for this failure is that this governance structure is unable to mitigate the contractual hazards related to collective and public labeling. We conclude by suggesting that the analysis developed by the antitrust authorities is misleading, generates an incorrect assessment of the rationale behind the collective organization governing public labels and, more importantly, reduces the incentives of private agents to invest in collective labeling.