Carlo Petrini, the founder of the Slow Food global grassroots movement promoting sustainable food production and local, traditional cuisine, has died at age 76.
He died in his home town in Italy's northwestern Piedmont region.
The Slow Food organisation called him "a visionary leader and a public intellectual with a profound commitment to the common good, human relationships and the natural world".
Slow Food, initially called Arcigola, grew out of opposition to the arrival of fast food in Italy, with a 1986 protest on the steps of the newly opened McDonald's at Rome's Spanish Steps announcing their mission.
Petrini was elected president on December 9, 1989, in Paris, when more than 20 delegations from around the world signed the Slow Food Manifesto.
