The number of geographical indications (GIs) in Turkey has skyrocketed in the last few years: more than 1000 out of the total 1525 GI legislations have been issued since 2020. In parallel with the growing interest in “local” food among consumers, GI has become a crucial label for indicating an alternative to industrial and placeless food production. Yet the recent explosion of the GIs barely satisfies this concern of certifying alternative “local” food products. This presentation will start with a brief overview of the potential of the GIs in terms of alternative local food networks. After situating the legal regulations on the GIs in Turkey against this background, I will focus on a particular case, Kars Kaşar cheese, which was certified as a GI in 2015. Unlike most of the others, this legislation has been acquired through a participatory process by a group of scientists, farmers, cheesemakers, and development officials who unexpectedly collaborated for many years before the official legislation was issued. Relying on my long-term involvement in this network since 2013 and my 18-month ethnographic research between 2017-2019, my analysis reveals that the participation of small dairy farmers and cheesemakers who own rural artisanal dairies in the province enabled the legislation to challenge the food safety regulations that favor the industrialization of dairy production through Pasteurization of rural Turkey. In the last section of my presentation, I highlight that while the Kars Kaşar cheese has gained a considerable reputation in the previous decade, GI use is still not widespread among the producers due to the pressures of large industrial dairies situated in the Organized Industrial Zone of Kars province. Hence, I will suggest that GIs in Turkey not only suggest some “false alternatives” but also point to the structural obstacles that prevent the alternatives from thriving.