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Food is a right
Slow Food in the UK (SFUK) promotes and supports the position of food at the heart of the health and wellbeing of people, communities and the economy.
Our food should be good (nutritious and fit for purpose), clean (produced in a way that is sustainable and supportive of the environment), fair (produced in a manner supportive for those in the production and supply chain) and available to all.
Good, fair and clean food is a human right.
It should be considered non-negotiable.
SFUK champions, promotes, and influences the adoption of this principle.
A vision rooted in the past, driven toward the future
Slow Food was originally founded as a response to the threat to the identity of local communities and cultures by the industrialization of food: a process that accelerated in the 1980s and continues to dominate food thinking today.
Since then, the importance of food within the economy and health of the UK has been recognized and endorsed by experts and the lay public alike yet food continues to be the baby that is thrown out with the bathwater of change.
Production of food that is local and sustainable and consumption of food as a central component of one’s life and wellbeing is not an outdated old-fashioned approach but one that resonates with life today and requires encouragement and support to enable it to continue to grow and thrive.
SFUK provides that encouragement and support.
Diversity is our strength
Climate change and environmental degradation, whether natural or man-made, create huge risks to food security based on a mono-culture approach to agriculture and food chains with high transport needs.
SFUK promotes local food production together with the local infrastructure to support it.
Sustainable food production and farming is predicated on biodiversity.
SFUK also recognizes that diversity of people and cultures is as much a strength as biodiversity is a key strength for the sustainability of our planet.
Care, communities and joy
For millennia, food has been the glue that has held communities together. It still can be.
SFUK recognizes the importance of the food experience as a key component of putting food first. People enjoy food for the taste and the pleasure of the moment. Conviviality is key. Food is to be shared.
SFUK recognizes and supports businesses and events that deliver not just food that meets the criteria of good, clean and fair but also that tastes good, is produced locally and is served in a hospitable environment.
Communities based around food create a healthy society.
Rural and urban futures
For the future of food in the UK to be good, clean and fair there is a need for rural and urban communities to not only understand each other but also to work together to support a national approach to food that embraces food at the centre of our wellbeing, economy and future security.
In this the challenge is often created by the sheer number of people living in our cities and urban conurbations. Inevitably this pushes the location of production, whether it be farms or fishing ports, further from the consumers.
SFUK recognizes that politicians need to consider the distribution of food in local plans, both urban and rural. Markets and distribution centres are key to making local food available to the maximum number of people.
SFUK engages with politicians to foster this approach and with the public to create the demand for this approach.
The next generation is this generation
Many younger people have grown up on a diet biased towards processed and ultra-processed foods.
For them to develop an approach to food that incorporates the principles of good, clean and fair requires both knowledge and desire.
SFUK promotes, develops and implements programmes and events to educate younger people in the importance of good, clean and fair food while creating opportunities for them to eat and hence experience good, clean and fair food for themselves.
By engaging this younger population SFUK aims to ensure that the values inherent in a ‘slow’ approach to food and health are continued in our communities and the wider world.
We are the multitude
On a worldwide basis Slow Food has strength in numbers:
- 8,000+ agroecological gardens
- 500,000+ people involved in the Slow Food gardens in Africa
- 10,000+ farmers and food artisans engaged through Presidia, Slow Food Farms and Earth Markets
- 2,000+ cooks mobilized through the Cooks’ Alliance
- 6,700+ foods defended through the Ark of Taste
- 1 million+ people reached through education, advocacy and collective action
Here SFUK is building similar communities in farming, among chefs and restaurant owners, in schools and with politicians at both local and national level.
From vision to action
- Slow Food in the UK builds caring communities
- By inviting individuals to come together around tables, markets, kitchens, and gardens, transforming shared food experiences into new local groups rooted in participation, care, and collective action.
- By creating spaces for participation, education and mutual support.
- By sharing food as an act of connection.
- Slow Food in the UK defends biodiversity
- By protecting seeds, landscapes, oceans, farms, and food cultures.
- By working with farmers and producers to advance agroecology, regenerate ecosystems, and preserve knowledge and collective memory.
- Slow Food in the UK educates for awareness and change
- By raising food awareness and critical understanding of the links between what we eat, how it is produced, and its impact on people, biodiversity, climate, and health.
- By turning knowledge into action, empowering communities to make informed choices and transform food systems.
- Slow Food in the UK cultivates political change
- By communicating with and promoting policy with local and national government, public institutions and private companies
Author: Paul Hitchcock
Regional Executive
