The BBC is coming once more to the biennial event in Turin, this time with their own BBC Ark of Taste booth to capture the stories of traditional products at risk of extinction on the radio.
The Ark of Taste, one of Slow Food’s main international projects, is a main topics at this year’s edition of Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre 2014, and the BBC Radio 4’s multi-award-winning Food Programme will be launching a groundbreaking radio project in its honor.
At Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre, the BBC Food Programme is premiering with its own BBC Ark of Taste booth. The BBC stand has been created in a partnership between the BBC and Slow Food International, and its purpose is to record stories from the Ark of Taste for BBC radio audiences around the world.
Slow Food’s Ark of Taste currently holds two thousand products and, thanks to the help of producers and farmers, the Ark of Taste space during Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre will be the showroom for these precious, traditional foods from around the world at risk of extinction.
Located in the heart of the International market at the Oval, the space covers the wide area of 600 square meters and its form recalls a reconstructed Noah’s Ark.
In addition, individual visitors and activists will bring and nominate their favorite products that are at risk of disappearing and that should become new Ark of Taste passengers.
In the BBC booth, located at the center of this display, a team from BBC Radio’s The Food Programme will be meeting and recording producers and farmers representing some of the products in the Ark for a special series on BBC Radio 4, the UK’s leading speech network. The BBC will be broadcasting these stories throughout 2015.
Since 1979 Radio 4 has broadcast weekly editions of The Food Programme, a 30-minute show dedicated to reporting food stories and issues from all over the world. The weekly programme is one of the longest running features of BBC Radio 4, the leading speech network in the United Kingdom.
During the five days of the event, the BBC will gather interviews representing all continents that tell the history of a product, its specific qualitative characteristics, why it is at risk of extinction, and more about its connection to the territory and to local traditions.
Listening to these stories will give insight into the landscape of problems inherent the current food system – especially concerning meat production, bee die-off and land grabbing of indigenous territories – as well as into the environmental and social challenges that farmers and producers are facing around the world, the existential threats inflicted upon them through industrialization and restrictive political regulations.
Salone del Gusto
Organized by Slow Food, the region of Piedmont and the city of Turin in collaboration with the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, the international Salone del Gusto event is coming back to Turin, Italy, this year in its 10th edition.
Dedicated to the world of food, Salone del Gusto is once more united into a single event with the international meeting of Terra Madre, the network of small-scale producers from around the world, which is now in its 10th year. Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre 2014 will be held from October 23-27 in Turin’s trade fair Centre Lingotto Fiere and see the presence of over 1000 exhibitors from 130 countries.
