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In the last century the European pig production systems underwent intensification in order to satisfy massive demands for lean meat. In parallel, Europeans local pig breeds, including Celtic pig breeds, declined due to their lower production ability and poorer adaptation to intensive farming. Celtic pig breeds are spread, basically, over the European Atlantic Arc regions. Generally these ancient genetic resources have poor growth rate and carcass conformation and, even though the quality and suitability for processing of their meat is widely acknowledged, most of them became extinct during the second half of the 20th century. At present, breeders, consumers and market operators are increasingly considering that new traits, such as intramuscular fat content, nutritional value or fat quality, are interesting to allow diversification of products in pig industry and improvement of marketing possibilities. Moreover, the European consumer demands high quality food products obtained using production systems compatible with the preservation of environment, landscape and genetic resources. In this respect, traditional food products obtained using local livestock breeds and traditional practices can contribute to achieve these goals, and they can also have significant effects on innovation and added value for marketing and rural societies. In this paper we tried to point out the social dynamics and the population needs of the Western Europe Celtic pig breeds: Portugal (Bísaro and Malhado Alcobaça); Spain (Celta, Asturcelta and Euskal Txerria in Galicia, Asturias and Basque