‘It’s all about local, it’s about good value and good quality...’
A CYNON Valley couple wants to spread the message about the importance of locally-produced food, following an inspiring trip to Italy where they took part in a worldrenowned festival.
In 2015, Mark and Carol Adams of Trecynon set up the South East Wales branch of the UK-wide Slow Food movement – a global, grassroots organisation founded in Italy during the 1980s, which shares the ethos of ‘good, clean and fair food for all’ and is named as the opposite to fast food.
The Aberdare couple recently visited Turin where they joined 7,000 delegates from 160 countries at the birthplace of Slow Food, to take part in the Terra Madre Slow Food festival for the first time.
Now, inspired by their adventure, they are hoping many more people will join the South East Wales group to help spread their message.
Carol, the woman of vice Slow chairFood Wales, said: “Slow Food is all about great food, that doesn’t cost the earth – both literally and metaphorically.
“We are a not-for-profit membership-based organisation and organise events and activities to promote and share the Slow Food ethos including regular taste workshops, farm visits, social meals, film screenings, markets and festivals, educational projects and much more.
“It’s all about local, it’s all about good value, it’s all about quality.”
Carol gave a talk on the Slow Food movement in Wales during the event, and the couple used their time at the festival to learn more about the movement and its values.
“It was truly amazing!” added Carol, who was born in New York and has been living in Aberdare for many years.
“There were 82 taste workshops – we didn’t get to them all, of course, and the opportunity to learn about great food in the stunning surrounds of the Royal Palace of Turin was out of this world.”
Husband Mark, secretary of Slow Food Wales, added: “We also got to learn loads more about a lot of issues at the heart of the Slow Food movement, including agriculture, biodiversity, the raising of livestock and animal wellbeing, meat consumption and the role of women in food production.
“Now we are hoping to share as much of this as we can with people across South East Wales who love good, clean, fair food and who want to see more of it available to all where they live through 2017 and beyond.”
For more information on Slow Food South East Wales – which covers Swansea to Monmouthshire, the South Wales valleys, Cardiff, Bridgend, Neath Port Talbot, Bridgend, the Vale of Glamorgan and Newport – visit www.slowfoodsoutheastwales.org.uk or follow @ SlowFoodSEWales on Twitter.