The Slow Food Movement
Slow Food began in 1986 when an Italian journalist called Carlo Petrini was horrified to see a new branch of McDonalds at the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome. To him, this seemed to represent a global takeover of industrialised, standardised food at the expense of good, traditional, regional food. He decided that it was necessary to set up a movement to counteract the potential for "fast food" world domination, and so the Slow Food movement was born.
The international Slow Food movement was first formally constituted in Paris on 9 November 1989, when delegates from 15 countries agreed and signed a founding Manifesto.
To quote Carlo Petrini,
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"The mission of Slow Food is to make it a pleasure to learn about taste and how food is produced. Consumers need to become co-producers. People need to work with and understand food producers and the value of good, traditional food - and what sets it apart from cheap food grown, processed and sold by industrialised methods." |
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Membership of the Slow Food movement is open to any individual. Businesses and organisations cannot join - only individual people. There are now over 85,000 Slow Food members across the world. You don't have to be an expert on food - just someone who appreciates good food and good company.
Members come together in local Convivia or associations, which meet to visit places of interest, enjoy tastings and themed dinners and meet with local quality food producers.
Slow Food International is based in the Italian town of Bra and organises a series of international events and workshops that bring together food producers, chefs and consumers from all over the world. The movement has set up a Foundation for Biodiversity that organises and funds projects to defend our world's agricultural biodiversity and gastronomic traditions. It also has Presidia that assist projects by groups of artisan producers.
Slow Food UK was launched in 2005 and has its headquarters in Ludlow. It has a full time administrator who supports and assists the local Convivia and facilitates exchange of information and good ideas across all the UK members.
More information about the Slow Food movement can be found at http://www.slowfood.com/.
