Rome - Italy's Slow Food movement has announced plans to host the world's biggest gourmet food fair in the city of Turin with a particular focus on “the foods that change the world”.
The Salone del Gusto fair will run October 25-29 and bring together 1,000 exhibitors from 100 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa, as well as 350 producers of traditional foods defended by Slow Food.
The fair will run at the same time as a meeting of Terra Madre, a network of food communities across five continents including in the developing world.
“New policies on food can change the world,” Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini told reporters in Rome, adding that the fair would also host around 40 conferences to discuss food rights, land grabbing and EU farm policy.
“Food has become just a good, particularly in Europe where farms are shutting down and farmers cannot survive on what they earn,” Petrini said.
He called for a reduction in food waste, more education about food for children from a young age and a strengthening of local communities.
Petrini also said Europe should fund “a return to the land” by young people.
Petrini, a sociologist and former food critic, said he was pleased the head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), Jose Graziano da Silva, would attend the fair, which is held every two years.
Slow Food was founded in 1986 in reaction to the rise of fast food, and now counts around 100,000 members in 130 countries. - Sapa-AFP