Slow Food Ark of Taste:
The Ark of Taste aims to re-discover, catalogue  and publicize currently fading flavours and gastronomic products that are threatened by industrial standardization, hygiene laws and the regulations of large-scale distribution. Its mission is to preserve these endangered tastes — fruit and vegetables, fresh and cured meats, cheeses, cereals, pastas, cakes, sweets — and give them a wider exposure.

Created in 1996, Slow Food’s Ark of Taste has catalogued hundreds of extraordinary products from around the world, and has made an important contribution to the documentation of the existence of diverse traditional foods. The idea of adopting this biblical metaphor for food dates back to 1996 and the first Salone del Gusto in Turin. A year later, the newly established Scientific Commission of the Ark in Italy drew up its  selection criteria. In brief, food products must: be of outstanding quality in terms of taste, be rooted in a specific local geographic area, be produced by artisans, be sustainably farmed and be in danger of extinction.

The Ark now boasts over 700 food products from 52 countries, from Argentine Capia Corn to Sicily’s Iblei Mountain Thyme Honey, from Navajo-Churro Sheep in New Mexico (USA) to Finnish Kalakukko bread.

Australian Ark projects:
Cured meat
Victorian goldfields bull-boar sausage
Fruit
Queensland bunya nut
Honey
Kangaroo Island ligurian bee honey
Tasmanian leatherwood honey