Slow Food is an organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. It was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 and has since spread worldwide. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem. It promotes local small businesses and sustainable foods. It also focuses on food quality, rather than quantity. It was the first established part of the broader slow movement. It speaks out against overproduction and food waste. It sees globalization as a process in which small and local farmers and food producers should be simultaneously protected from and included in the global food system.
A restaurant placard, Santorini, Greece
Slow Food Germany is among the organisers of the yearly demonstrations under the banner We are fed up! in Berlin.
Victory Garden at San Francisco Civic Center Plaza
Local food is food that is produced within a short distance of where it is consumed, often accompanied by a social structure and supply chain different from the large-scale supermarket system.
The Marylebone farmers' market in London, United Kingdom
A cheesemaking workshop with goats at Maker Faire 2011. The sign declares, "Eat your Zipcode!"