Slow Food USA
Ark of Taste

Northeast/New England Co-chair

Slow Food is a wonderful international organization that works to support good, clean and fair food.
Please visit their website for what they do in their own words.

Ark of Taste

The Ark of Taste is a living catalog of local foods that are at risk, endangered, or threatened with extinction. T
his catalog is why Jeff is an activist. While familiar with Slow Food since mid-90’s, Jeff discovered the Ark of Taste while blogging in 2009. It pushed him in the direction of preserving and advocating for preserving food biodiversity.

From the Ark of Taste website;
The Ark of Taste travels the world collecting small-scale quality productions that belong to the cultures, history and traditions of the entire planet: an extraordinary heritage of fruits, vegetables, animal breeds, cheeses, breads, sweets and cured meats…

The Ark was created to point out the existence of these products, draw attention to the risk of their extinction within a few generations, invite everyone to take action to help protect them. In some cases this might be by buying and consuming them, in some by telling their story and supporting their producers, and in others, such as the case of endangered wild species, this might mean eating less or none of them in order to preserve them and favor their reproduction.

Jeff’s role

  • Jeff is the co-chair of Slow Food USA’s Northeast/New England Regional Committee, and was a co-coordinator of national Ark committee.

  • Jeff was a programming co-chair for Slow Food USA’s Virtual Seed Summit in February 2020, which will be part of Slow Food International’s six month virtual Terra Madre food conference.

  • As a regional co-chair, he assists with nominations of local foods, does community outreach for the Ark and Slow Food, and assists with programming ideas for Slow Food USA’s Slow Nations annual food conference, and Slow Food International’s biannual Salone del Gusto Terra Madre food conference in Turin, Italy.

  • Jeff is also a member of Slow Food International’s Seed Working Group.

  • In 2019, Jeff hosted the first Seed Swap at Slow Nations in Denver, CO. The event took place July 21, 2019
    was be covered in Slow Food International’s August 2019 Newsletter. Jeff was asked to write about it.

  • In 2018, Jeff was a sponsored delegate to Salone del Gusto 2018 Terra Madre, where he was invited to participate as a panelist in Banks, Libraries, and Granaries: Where Seeds Are Conserved.