What is Slow Food?
Slow Food is a global, grassroots organization, founded in 1989 to prevent the disappearance of local food cultures and traditions, counteract the rise of fast life and combat people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from and how our food choices affect the world around us. Simply stated, we link the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.
Vision
Food represents a common language and universal right. Slow Food envisions a world in which all people can eat food that is good for them, good for the people who grow it and good for the planet. In essence, food that is good, clean and fair for all.
Our Mission
We seek to create a dramatic and lasting change in the food system and strive to reconnect Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We aim to inspire individuals and communities to change the world through food that is good, clean and fair for all.
GOOD
Believe in delicious nutrition as a right for everyday life
Cultivate joyful connections to community and place
Advocate for diversity in ecosystems and societies
CLEAN
Protect natural resources for future generations
Help people and the environment depend on each other
Promote food that is local, seasonal, and sustainably grown
FAIR
Build local cooperation and global collaboration while respecting all laws
Require no prerequisite or credential for participation
Fight for dignity of labor from field to fork
How the movement began
In 1986, Carlo Petrini recognized that a proposed fast food restaurant in Piazza di Spagna near the Spanish Steps in Rome represented a threat to the Italian food culture of trattorias and osterias. Carlo rallied his activist friends to defend regional traditions, good food, gastronomic pleasure and a slow pace of life. Instead of throwing rocks and yelling, they brought a big bowl of penne pasta and shared it with the crowd that gathered, chanting: We don’t want fast food; we want Slow Food.
In 1989 the international Slow Food movement was officially founded in Paris, France, and the Slow Food Manifesto was signed.
Bristol Bay Watershed
The future of Slow Food
In the last three decades, Slow Food has evolved into a grassroots movement with a comprehensive approach to food that recognizes the strong connections between plate, planet, people, politics and culture.
We believe that food is cause, victim and delicious solution of climate change. In the coming years, we will focus on the positive solutions of Slow Food and connect the dots between farmers and consumers as everyday climate champions. By acting together as a global network, we can pivot towards more sustainable food production and farming systems, and achieve a climate-friendly future.