By Matthew Lambreth
The Slow Food Movement is an international movement focused on food diversity, fighting back against Fast Food, and the implications it brings on society. The movement began in 1986, founded by Italian wine critic Carlo Petrini as an opposition to the rapid growth of fast food and agricultural industrialization. The movement’s catalyst was the construction of a McDonald’s in the center of Rome. Protests erupted and, as a result, the Rome McDonald’s was constructed without the iconic golden arches.
When I first reviewed the movement’s website, I realized that this was not only a movement that I wanted to research, but one I thought aligned well with my personal beliefs about food. When looking for primary sources, I wanted to look at three different mediums of the movement. I chose to analyze Carlo Petrini’s first book, The Case for Taste, the Slow Food Manifesto written by another founding member of the movement, and a cookbook about Slow Food written by a food journalist with a preface from Carlo Petrini.
My secondary sources focused primarily on the economic impact of the movement. One discussed how the movement utilizes its size and power to help producers that align with it and support smaller businesses (Tencati and Zsolnai). Another discusses the “Ark of Taste” project that focuses on preserving food products around the world that are on the verge of extinction (Nosi and Zanni).
It is significant that the Slow Food Movement gained substantial support and became an international organization just three years after it was founded. The movement was created as a social response but evolved to have a primary purpose to support small businesses that have suffered as a result of Fast Food.
Works Cited:
Tencati, Antonio, and Laszlo Zsolnai. “Collaborative Enterprise and Sustainability: The Case of Slow Food.” Journal of Business Ethics 110, no. 3 (2012): 345–54. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1178-1.
Nosi, Costanza, and Lorenzo Zanni. “Moving from ‘Typical Products’ to ‘Food‐Related Services.’” British Food Journal 106, no. 10/11 (2004): 779–92. https://doi.org/10.1108/00070700410561388.
