Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem.

[4][5] Slow Food began in Italy with the founding of its forerunner organization, Arcigola, in 1986[6] to resist the opening of a McDonald's near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

[7] In 1989, the founding manifesto of the international Slow Food movement was signed in Paris, France, by delegates from 15 countries.

Offices have been opened in Switzerland (1995), Germany (1998), New York City (2000), France (2003), Japan (2005), the United Kingdom, and Chile.

Recent efforts at publicity include the world's largest food and wine fair, the Salone del Gusto in Turin, a biennial cheese fair in Bra called Cheese, the Genoan fish festival called SlowFish, and Turin's Terra Madre ("Mother Earth") world meeting of food communities.

In 2004, Slow Food opened a University of Gastronomic Sciences[12] at Pollenzo, in Piedmont, and Colorno, in Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

Carlo Petrini and Massimo Montanari are the leading figures in the creation of the university, whose goal is to promote awareness of good food and nutrition.

[23] The event reconvened in 2017 as Slow Food Nations, the stateside equivalent to Terra Madre Salone del Gusto, and was held in Denver, Colorado.

Slow Food-University of Wisconsin has five projects that are dedicated to the movement's efforts, including a Family Dinner Night, weekly café, and a Farm to University scheme.

[30] Notable members include Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, Pamela Sheldon Johns, Fabrizio Facchini and Michael Pollan.

The many notable Slow Food UK members and supporters include Raymond Blanc and Jamie Oliver.

SFYN believes that they, as young people, must play an important role in the future of food production and consumption.

In the Netherlands they do this through eat-ins, tastings, events such as World Disco Soup Day, the talkshow Als Warme Broodjes, campaigns such as food education and projects such as the SFYN Academy.

[citation needed] In 2005, British-born Latvian chef Mārtiņš Rītiņš became the president of the newly-founded Latvian Slow Food Association, which has been organizing slow food festivals in cities across Latvia with cooking demonstrations by Rītiņš and other chefs, tastings by local organic producers and cultural handicrafts (such as fine silver jewellery, beeswax candles, leather books, pottery and hemp clothing) by local artisans.

The Presidia Project represents a shift from cataloging information to implementing the knowledge through the direct involvement of food producers.

[10] In contrast, the more affluent society can afford the time and expense of developing "taste", "knowledge", and "discernment".

[10] In 1989, Petrini visited Venezuela and began to recognize the socioeconomic barriers that many faced with regard to the slow food movement.