Late on the evening of Thursday, May 21, 2026, Carlo Petrini passed away at his home in Bra (Cuneo), at the age of 76. His integrated vision of food, nature, and biodiversity gave rise to Slow Food (1986), the international Terra Madre network, and the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo (2004). He was also a co-founder of the Laudato si' Communities (2017), inspired by Pope Francis ' encyclical.

Born in Bra in 1949, Carlo Petrini (also known as "Carlin") was a gastronome, journalist, writer, and advocate for a sustainable and fair food system. On July 26, 1986, Petrini founded Arcigola (later Slow Food Italy), an initiative that quickly spread throughout Italy and abroad. On December 9, 1989, in Paris, the Slow Food Manifesto was signed by over twenty delegations from around the world, and Petrini was elected president, a position he held until 2022.

"He who sows utopia, reaps reality," Carlo Petrini loved to say, summing up his life, convinced that dreams and visions, when beautiful, right, engaging, and lived with conviction and passion, can be realized," reads a commemorative note on the Slow Food website. "He knew how to dream and have fun, build and inspire, toward concrete social redemption, working with people, especially young people, advocating for fraternity, emotional intelligence, and austere anarchy. His energy, his extraordinary empathy, his drive, and his example will be the force that guides us all."

Condolences for the passing of Carlo Petrini were expressed by the italian Minister of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry, Francesco Lollobrigida , who, in a statement, stated: "I carefully read the crystal-clear words on Food Sovereignty immediately after renaming the Ministry of Agriculture, adding this strategic objective to its own. The words of a man who had fought throughout his life for the right to quality food, for the freedom of peoples, for the defense of the most vulnerable and of Mother Earth, instantly erased any base controversy that decision had sparked. He could, given his history and authority, allow himself to express his thoughts, reminding everyone, including myself, of the weight and responsibility of pursuing those goals."

His movement has not been without criticism. As Bruno Babando aptly summarized in "Lo Spiffero," "Petrini was also the symbol of a certain post-ideological Italian left: ecologist, community-minded, anti-industrial, often wary of the global market but perfectly integrated into its cultural circles. But precisely this almost sacred dimension of food sometimes ended up transforming Slow Food into a sort of secular religion of gastronomy." Yet "before many others, he understood the relationship between the environment, food quality, hydrogeological instability, and development models. He understood that food would become one of the major political issues of the 21st century. Carlin Petrini thus leaves behind a gigantic and controversial legacy. A visionary capable of transforming a snail into a global brand, but also an intellectual often indulgent in anti-scientific tendencies. A defender of biodiversity and small-scale producers, yet an advocate for a model accused of appealing primarily to Western elites. A leftist who engaged in dialogue with popes, kings, and governments, always poised between a communitarian utopia and the construction of cultural power. His strongest insight remains: food is never just food. It is identity, politics, economics, the environment, and social conflict."