Slow Food and regional food and drink retailer Booths are delighted to announce a partnership deal, which will see the two companies working together to promote the quality, provenance, seasonality and regionality of food.

The partnership will enable Slow Food to build on its core infrastructure, serve its network of local groups more efficiently and support its education projects. It will also see a number of initiatives put in place, including; Taste Adventure interactive workshops to communicate the excitement of food to families, membership of Slow Food for both Booths staff and customers alike and recipe cards throughout the store highlighting ‘good, clean and fair’ food.

Slow Food is dedicated to promoting the greater enjoyment of food through a better understanding of its taste, quality and production. The organisation feels that there is a synergy with Booths and admires the company’s commitment to sourcing products from the counties it serves.

Booths has a 160-year heritage of retailing local and regional foods. At least 25% of all products in its stores at any one time are locally sourced. 85% of its meat and 65% of its bread is from the region and in season, 100% of its tomatoes are British. Local air-dried ham, lamb, milk, cream, sausages, cakes, breads, cheeses, apples, venison, yoghurt and even jalapeno chillies are all to be found in-store.

The Booths partnership is representative of how Slow Food is being propelled forward following an organisational change in the UK last year. It is now based out of a heritage building in Neal’s Yard, central London and is currently initiating several new projects including Slow Food on Campus, Slow Food Baby and Slow Food Wisdom.

In a separate initiative, Booths has provided a donation to fund the start up of Slow Food Wisdom. A project that will engage with the older generation to help rediscover the UK’s food heritage and ensure it is not lost for future generations.

Edwin Booth, chairman and the fifth generation of the Booth family to run the retailer says of the deal: “The first time that I heard about Slow Food I was struck by its passion for good food and drink which is produced with care and tastes good. It is products like this that form the bedrock of our range at Booths.”

Catherine Gazzoli, CEO of Slow Food UK comments: ‘We’re delighted to be working with Booths, the partnership will bring valuable funding into Slow Food and will benefit our grassroots volunteer network allowing us to give them more support and enabling us to deliver on the projects we’re currently planning.’