Slow Food Products at the Grocery Store

[SWISS_CHEF]

I was at a Coop grocery store in Switzerland (my local supermarket) day before yesterday and noticed a Slow Food display containing several products promoted by Slow Food...

See the whole list here: Sorry in German, French or Italian only.

Have you seen Slow Food products in your area of the world yet?

If so, have you tried them and what do you think?

Prices here in Switzerland are 2 to 3 times the price of other premium brands and way, way more than the budget varieties.

I bought some Dehradun Basmati rice and some Cicerchia di Serra de’ Conti

I will cook them carefully and let you know what I think.

Interestingly enough, the descriptions/directions were written in several languages so Slow Food seems to be gearing up to market globally. In your opinion is that cool or uncool???

Is this what Slow Food is supposed to be all about...flying food all over the world for yuppie consumption? It seems to me that as the end seller, the big profit margins will mostly be realised by the grocery stores... maybe that is why Coop Italy and Coop Switzerland are such big sponsors of Slow Food.

I am certainly all for helping to promote sustainable agriculture but is this the right way to do it? Do you think this will end up pissing people off and ruining a really important cause?

I hope this won't be the case.

[docsconz]

Very interesting. This is a major dilemma of Slow Food. Presumably, those are good, unique products and somewhat scarce which can justify the price. Hopefully the funds (at least some of them) make their way back to the farmers and encourage them and others to continue to grow and raise these products because they have economic viability in addition to ideological viability. The foods will be truly sustainable once a farmer can make a living off them. Theoretically, as the particular and other products become more widespread the price should drop. This has been the history of the farmers market movement in the US. As they have become more popular, more farmers are doing it and making more money even as competition is keeping prices in check (at least at most routine Farmers markets). The big risk is that such aggressive initial pricing will keep these products from getting off the ground.

I'll look forward to reading about your results with the products you bought. I suspect that they will be good, perhaps qualitatively different from your usual products, but only subjectively "better."

[emsny]

The one SlowFood-endorsed product I've seen (this was yesterday) in a New York brick-and-mortar store was a line of Italian-made ice creams and sorbets by the Turin company Menodiciotto (the name means minus 18: the recommended Centigrade temperature for storage). Each featured an ingredient from a particular "Slow" source/variety, such as pistachios from Bronte in Sicily. Each also contained the sorts of stabilizers that we expect in commercial ice cream - nothing appalling or toxic, but not something we necessarily associate with Slowness. We bought a mandarin sorbet and a pistachio ice cream, both delicious, smooth and in perfect condition, perhaps thanks to the stabilizers, but also to the good, though not very eco-friendly, packaging: a styrofoam container in a sturdy cardboard box. My impression is that SlowFood gets a percentage of the profits from this line of flavors - could such payments be at the root of these supermarket products with SlowFood labels? The store, by the way, was Buon'Italia in Chelsea Market. Come to think of it, doesn't the GROM gelato place on Broadway sell a couple of SlowFood flavors? That's different from buying a sealed package from a shop, though.

[SWISS_CHEF]

Thanks John and emsny,

I agree that if any of the money makes it back to the farmer then it is a good thing but somehow I get the feeling that the supermarkets might take advantage of the slowfood movement purely for their profit's sake and create a bubble that will burst, leaving us wondering "what ever happened to the Slow Food products that used to be on the shelves".

Coop has grabbed on to every enviro-fad ever invented, some good and some bad.

Go to their web page and click on "Labels" and you will see.

I am worried that it will only be a matter of time before consumers get burned out of all this high-end hype and the important concepts like the Slow Food rare foods will get lost in the shuffle.

I wonder what the pie chart looks like for a dollar/euro/pound spent at the average grocery store? What percentage goes to whom?

Isn't the Slow Food concept too important to be trusted to the cut-throat grocery store way of marketing?

Edited July 22, 2007 by SWISS_CHEF (log)

[emsny]

You are right: There is a danger that big businesses will appropriate the name, as they are doing with the term "organic" / "biologique". I am sure that someone has addressed this issue, as it applies to SlowFood, somewhere, and we should keep our eyes open for news. Certainly, Michael Pollan has written about the broader issue of industrial organic food compared with small-producer organic food, and a great deal has been written here in the US about government working with agribusiness to weaken the standard for what can be labeled organic. As you know, many small farmers who run impeccably organic, sustainable operations prefer not to accept the US government organic certification, feeling that it has been tainted. It would be a shame if the same were to happen with SlowFood.

[Jamie Lee]

I admit, I thought these products were cheap take-offs from the real Slow Cooking movement.

To me, Slow Cooking means selecting products grown/raised locally, cook them at home with love and patience, eat them with friends and family, and celebrate the liberation from fast food and restaurant substandard fare.

To the extent that processed foods further that goal - I'm all for it. If such processed goods are just "more of the same with a different stripe' - COUNT ME OUT.

J.

[MarkIsCooking]

I think the whole topic of food distribution and how capitalism affects it (in the US) is quite interesting and I hope someone figures out a way to help us move forward in a good way within our system.EatWild.com

The good news is that people are far more conscious about the quality of the food they eat (it might not be having a great impact yet, but people are thinking about it more). Clear evidence is the explosion of Whole Foods and similar stores. More good news is that Whole Foods does pay some attention to local producers, especially for cheese and seafood (at least in my area near Boston).

I know many of us would love to see more focus on 'buying local'. We have a few farmers markets in our area which seem to do well and this is a fairly new thing.

I just began looking into acquiring meat that is produced locally by artisan farmers, as opposed to the big meat producers who service all the regular stores. I hope you will too, if you haven't already. I found info www.EatWild.com and LocalHarvest.org.

At the end of the day, at least in the US, we need to find a way to educate people, improve the convenience of buying local and maybe then we have a chance.

-Mark-

[docsconz]

I certainly buy local a lot as I am a frequent denizen of my local Farmers markets and restaurants that serve locally grown and raised product, however, I think it is more important that people buy smart and buy products that deserve to be supported wherever they are from because they are of high quality and are unique in some way or another. Slow Food , more than simply buying locally, is all about biodiversity. It does no-one any good to buy local produce if it is all the same as what can be bought half-way around the world. Farmers should be encouraged and rewarded for growing quality produce and a variety of it with an emphasis on what does particularly well in a particular locale. The day that Agro-Industry starts growing and selling Slow food products is the day that we should all rejoice so long as they are the actual products raised the way that Slow Food currently espouses.

BTW, my dinner tonight consisted of naturally raised grass-fed local beef Delmonico steaks with locally grown corn and romano green beans, bread and grilled haloumi cheese from Cypress.

[SWISS_CHEF]

I made the Basmati tonight. It was good but honestly I can't say it was any better than a good Basmati I buy at a local Indian grocery store in Switzerland.

I will report on the Cicerchia di Serra de’ Conti next...trouble is I have never had Cicerchia before so I can't really provide an objective analysis.