Italy's 'Slow Food' founder Carlo Petrini dies at 76

Carlo Petrini, the Italian founder of the international "Slow Food" movement, which reshaped global thinking on food production and consumption, died at the age of 76, the organisation said.

Petrini died on Thursday in his hometown of Bra, in the northwestern Italian region of Piedmont, it added, without giving a cause of death. He had revealed in recent years that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

"He brought to life a global movement rooted in the values of good, clean, and fair food for all," Slow Food said in a statement.

An orator and writer with strong views, Petrini spoke about agriculture and food quality as cultural, social and political matters.

He helped elevate small-scale farmers, traditional food practices and biodiversity at a time when mass consumption and globalisation threatened to erode them.

"The passing of Carlo Petrini leaves a huge void not only in the world of food and wine science, but also in society as a whole, and not just in Italy," said Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

SLOW FOOD VERSUS FAST FOOD

Known as 'Carlin' by friends and Slow Food supporters, he set up the grassroots movement in 1986 in protest against McDonald's opening of its first fast food restaurant in Italy, near Rome's famed Spanish Steps.

"Once on a plane, a man approached me and said, 'I'm your enemy. I'm responsible for all the McDonald's in Italy,'" Petrini told the Corriere della Sera newspaper in December.

"I replied that I was actually grateful, because without them there would be no Slow Food."

The movement, which emphasised quality, environmental sustainability and equitable conditions for producers grew under his leadership from a small group of friends in the countryside into an international global network in more than 160 countries.

Petrini also opened the University of Gastronomic Sciences in the town of Pollenzo, created the Ark of Taste, an international catalogue of endangered foods, and Terra Madre, a global forum of food communities, producers and chefs.

FRIENDS WITH KING CHARLES AND POPE FRANCIS

He had a very strong bond with his sister Chiara, but never established a family of his own. "I feel part of a bigger family," he said, when asked whether he had regrets about not marrying or having children.

Petrini was a personal friend of Britain's King Charles, a longstanding champion of organic farming, and of the late Pope Francis, an Argentine whose Italian immigrant family also hailed from Piedmont.

The Slow Food founder, a self-declared agnostic, admired Francis' pro-environment "Laudato Si" encyclical and would send the pontiff an annual Christmas gift of tajarin, a traditional, thin ribbon-like egg pasta from Piedmont.

-Giulia Segreti and Alvise Armellini/Reuters