Slow Food Movement
Après is a founding member of the Whistler Slow Food Convivium, an international organization established as a response to the standardizing effects of fast food. We subscribe to artisanal food production, small scale agriculture, and sustainable approaches to fishing and farming.
What is the slow Food movement
Slow Food is an international member-supported organization that has developed many structural entities to help realize its projects.
80,000 members are involved in over 850 convivia - our local chapters - worldwide.
The organization is led by the International Executive Committee, which is elected every four years at the Slow Food International Congress and consists of the President's Committee and the International Council. The council is made up of representatives from countries with at least 500 Slow Food members.
Some countries have national branches governed by national executive committees. National branches coordinate Slow Food events and projects with deeper knowledge of the needs of their members and their own countries.
The Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity was founded in 2003 to support Slow Food's projects that defend agricultural biodiversity and gastronomic traditions, with a particular focus on developing countries.
Terra Madre is a meeting of food communities from all over the world, as well as a network among food producers, distributors, cooks, academics and all those who work for responsible and sustainable food production.
Slow Food created the University of Gastronomic Sciences to offer a multidisciplinary academic program in the science and culture of food. UNISG is another way in which Slow Food brings together the innovations and research of the academic and scientific world and the traditional knowledge of farmers and food producers.
Some national associations have created for-profit companies to manage commercial events and ventures whose earnings go to support the associations' activities (eg., Slow Food Italy's publishing house, Slow Food Editore).
Slow food philosophy
We believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible. Our movement is founded upon this concept of eco-gastronomy – a recognition of the strong connections between plate and planet.
Slow Food is good, clean and fair food. We believe that the food we eat should taste good; that it should be produced in a clean way that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health; and that food producers should receive fair compensation for their work.
We consider ourselves co-producers, not consumers, because by being informed about how our food is produced and actively supporting those who produce it, we become a part of and a partner in the production process.