Slow Food Members to represent Canada at the Slow Meat Event in the US

Canada, May 27th, 2015 – Taking place June 4-6 in Denver, Colorado, Slow Meat is an event that “brings together ranchers, farmers, butchers, chefs, eaters and more to share ideas on how we can turn the herd toward meat that is good, clean and fair for all” (Slow Meat Website). Three Canadians will proudly represent Canada at the second edition of this event.

“There is a growing crisis in rural communities: consumers are craving transparency, quality and relationships at the very same moment that a culture of confinement confines farmers, animals and opportunity. Slow Meat is intended to provide a safe space for supply to connect to demand, advocates to connect with ranchers, and vegetarians with butchers to climb out from beneath a system that worships scale and speed rather than quality and transparency”, states Richard McCarthy, Executive Director of Slow Food USA, the group organizing the Slow Meat Conference.

Rachel and Tyler Herbert of Trail’s End Beef, a fifth-generation family ranch in the Porcupine Hills of southern Alberta, will be representing us at the event. Since the late 1800s, their family produces natural grassfed, grass-finished beef raised in a way that is good for the land, the animals and the consumers – a good example of Slow Food’s good, clean and fair values.

Julia Smith, of Urban Digs Farm, will also be representing Canada at the Slow Meat Conference. The farm, as their website states, “supplies families and chefs with trustworthy meat, eggs and produce grown at our farm and by other farmers [they] know.” Julia is on a mission to revolutionize the food industry and hopes to inspire change.

These delegates are supported by Slow Food in Canada, a collaborative team comprised of Slow Food networks from coast to coast. Its mission, as stated by the International movement, is the recognition of the central role of good, clean and fair food. “We are thrilled that our delegates are ‘joining the change makers’ as a voice for Canada and are fully confident in their abilities to be a catalyst for change,” says Heather Pritchard, Chair of Slow Food in Canada.

Slow Meat 2015 will feature a wide array of activities, conferences and dinners, including the Denver Dine Around Dinners on June 4^th, the Slow Meat Symposium and Delegation Dinner on June 5^th, and the Slow Meat Fair on June 6^th, where the public is invited to experience Slow Meat by attending lectures and workshops.