Photo: flickr/Rob Marquardt
Every day, a fresh batch of emails appears in the Slow Food Boston inbox. They usually run along the lines of… “We’ll be visiting in April. What restaurants do you recommend?” (We don’t certify restaurants, but here are a few we like personally.) “I’m a recent graduate of Emerson College and about to launch my career as a food blogger. Do you have an internship program?” (No, but we’d be happy to connect you to one of the many excellent food-related groups in the area.) “I have an idea for/would like to help out with a Slow Food event. What should I do?” (Eureka! Another volunteer! Please contact us.) But this one was a bit different. Written in the relentlessly peppy tone of the seasoned marketer, it told us about an organization that was, like ours, “fiercely passionate about food with integrity,” and that wanted to donate refreshments, host a discussion, sponsor an event or talk about other ways we could “work together and strengthen our shared mission.”
Yup, Chipotle had reached out.
The restaurant chain has much to be commended. The founder, Steve Ellis, a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, is passionate about from-scratch cooking, a major accomplishment in an industry that often relies on partially or fully cooked foodstuffs provided by giant food service companies such as Aramark and Sodexo. In 2000, after visiting a Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO), Ellis vowed to serve only humanely raised pork in Chipotle’s burritos. Forty percent of its beans are organically grown. And recently, the company committed to sourcing 50% of at least one produce ingredient from the regions in which it has stores.
But as laudable as all these practices are, Chipotle is still a fast-food restaurant. Begun in 1993 with a single location and an $85K family loan, by 2004, under the tutelage of Daddy Deep Pockets, aka McDonald’s, it had exploded to 500 locations across the US. A 2006 initial public offering (IPO), the 2nd most successful ever for a restaurant chain (share prices doubled), fueled further growth; today Chipotle has over 1000 sites nationwide and is looking to expand abroad. With such outsized ambition, it’s probably inevitable that some ugly issues have popped up.
Issues such as Chipotle’s ongoing refusal to sign the Fair Food agreement with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), an organization representing Florida tomato farmworkers, immigrants who’ve endured shockingly low pay, dismal working conditions and even worse. Chipotle claims to have instituted an equivalent policy—an additional penny per pound in pay—on its own. But ad hoc Mr. Nice Guy gestures are no match for a contract—a point which the CIW has made repeatedly and to deaf ears. (At the end of this month, Slow Food USA’s president, Josh Viertel, will be here in Boston to march with the Immokalee Workers on Ahold, parent company of the Quincy-based Stop & Shop, to protest its refusal to sign the same agreement. If you are so inclined, please come!) Or the fact that just last week Chipotle was forced to fire half its Minnesotan work force because they were undocumented.
It’s no accident that Slow Food sounds like the opposite of fast food. It is. Begun in response to the opening of a McDonald’s near Rome’s Spanish Steps, it has sought to counter monolithic agricultural and food production; the globalization of culture, culinary and otherwise; and the disappearance of the ancient tradition of eating in community. Even if Chipotle’s operations resulted in food that was always “good, clean and fair,” one of the tenets laid out in the Slow Food International Statute, sponsorship by a restaurant chain is in and of itself antithetical to the Slow Food mission. And, of course, no matter the good causes it invokes, a corporate donor inevitably wants a few things in return…
WHAT YOUR CORPORATE SPONSOR WANTS FROM YOU
Access Got members? Supporters? Great! Your corporation wants to meet them—and woo them!
Influence Every now and then, your leaders make decisions that affect your corporation, or how it appears to the world. Nothing like a well-placed phone call or email to circumvent that, or to steer your process in a different direction.
Endorsement This can be tacit, say a luscious looking taco spread at your next meeting, or overt, such as stamps of approval on boxes of crackers or cookies.
Status It’s all about who you hang with, right? Your organization wears a nimbus of authenticity and integrity. Now so does your corporate sponsor!
Camoflauge Oh dear. Your corporation was naughty. In this scenario, you are the adulterous politician’s wife, standing loyally at his side during the “I done wrong” press conference.
Slow Food has become a worldwide movement because people believe in it. Our job is to honor that trust by defending the organization’s founding principles. So, um, regarding that offer, Chipotle? Thanks, but no thanks!
Readers, what do you think Slow Food should do? Fill out this extremely short survey to let us know.
*The opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Slow Food Boston, Slow Food USA or Slow Food International.
Anastacia Marx de Salcedo posts monthly on Public Radio Kitchen for Slow Food Boston.
I am a firm believer in the principles behind Slow Food, but the we are at a pivotal point in transforming our nation’s flawed food system and we need to partner with corporate giants to make change happen.
Really!
What challenging choices – right even in the end it seems hard to avoid Monsanto seeds that we happily grow, clean, and eat. Funding is important, and it seems hard to get honestly “clean” money. But gray definitely turns black and white at some point in the spectrum.
Thanks for pointing this out!
Not as long as they have their head in the sand re fair working conditions, fair wages, healthful eating, local vs corporate food sourcing etc etc etc.
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NO is my vote. Eating in chain restaurants is NOT like having a slow meal in an
Italian garden with friends. Keep the spirit alive
Promote small local business, and let the big businesses find their own way in a market where consumers have more choices.
Just because you accept the money does not mean you have to accommodate ANY of the corporate demands. Just don’t expand the organization’s budget to EXPECT this money. Use it as a fund that is available until it’s depleted, the continue operating on your previous budget. If you won $5000 on a lottery ticket, would you go out and rent an apartment that’s an extra $500/month just because of it? Hopefully not. Doesn’t mean the funding can’t be uncompromisingly beneficial to the mission.
Slow Food is an educational orgainization. We have to think outside the box if we want people to start to think about where their food comes from. Otherwise you are just preaching to the choir.
Education, not legislation.
It’s about choices. Fast food is not going away.
Chipotle approached our Slow Food chapter to show the film “What’s On Your Plate?” last year. The chapter board asked ourselves much the same question, and decided that we could work with them, but only as equal partners. We wrote them a letter as such, and followed it up with a phone call, and never even heard back.
The problem is equalness. A Slow Food chapter is too small. They control things – it’s not a partnership. We get exposure, perhaps funds, we hope some say in furthering their movement toward sustainability; they get the goodwill which comes with our name, and can use it for cover as mentioned in the article. It’s not necessarily a bad swap. But it just has to be equal to make sense. And I’m not sure that it can be. (And I certainly don’t think that they want it to be.)
Stay local. We want to promote our neighborhood sustainable restaurants. And the partnerships can be equal.
I cannot fathom how Slow food could take money from the corporate food giants without tainting it’s reputation. If you accept the money you don’t necessarily have to accommodate any of the corporate demands, but you would then have to accommodate the reality that Slow Food’s founding principles no longer have the validity that they once did. We should concern ourselves more with the original objectives of Slow Food and how best to achieve them without compromising for the support that is needed.
Anyone who does not know the founding objectives should google them, so they do know. Partnering with the corporate giants isn’t on the list.
I’m not sure we can change “major” fast food organizations when their mission is still profit and their affiliations are with unhealthy agribusiness and food purveyors.
We must support only those organizations that “fully commit” to the Slow Food philosophy and help those organization become the “dominate food providers” for humankind. Only then will we find effective change in our food landscape.
“We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
-In the Continental Congress just before signing
the Declaration of Independence, 1776. B. Franklin
I would rather see us collaborate with Food Marketers, Agribusiness and purveyors who “faithfully” commit to the Slow Food philosophy and in return we will help them grow and become the dominate organizations, thereby forcing a change in the food landscape.
I would vote no. Loss of credibility would be my main reason. Fast food and “corporate” food is not slow food…even if it is striving to be the lesser of the evils in its market. It feels like what you would be getting is nothing compared to for what you would be giving up .
I vote yes. Slow has always believed in inclusiveness, and has encouraged us to work with entities like Kendall Jackson, Whole Food and the Farm Bureau – all who are not 100% perfect (who is?).
I personally think a “judicious” use of corporate support can be valuable; both in enhancing our ability to get our mission “out”, and also by affecting those that we work with.
We need to partner with local food producers to support and promote local farming. It’s good for the local economy, protects us from rising transportation costs and is fresher and has more vitamins. My belief is that Slow Food is about supporting local chefs, restaurants, food artisans and honoring regional fare that is prepared by a chef grounded in the region from which they are cooking, not by a mass marketing corporation with a “training program” to make sure the meal in each restaurant tastes the same as the next