Rythmes alimentaires: du fast au slow

Abstract

This article aims to show, with the instruments of semiotic analysis, that Slow Food is a perfect brand. On the one hand, this brand was born as opposed to another very strong brand, the world colossus of fast food McDonald’s. On the other hand, this opposition was not originally an offer of alternative products to McDonald's, but a proposal for new values: an abstract formulation of an alternative form of life. It is only in a second step, once the brand is established (thanks to its communicative supports), that it acquires a series of commercial offers: food, wines, places of catering, publishing, companies, territories whole, even slow-moving cities. Thus, by a semiotic gesture, Slow Food accomplishes the discursive process typical of any brand: and becomes, as Lévi-Strauss would have said, "good to think".