Slow Food International is an organization that promotes traditional food production, including fair prices to farmers, solid environmental practices, heritage breeds of livestock and heirloom vegetable varieties. It began in Italy, but there is a strong U.S. presence with local chapters in many cities, including Milwaukee and Madison.

Every other year in mid-September, Slow Food hosts a festival focused in Bra, Italy, exclusively on cheese. Raw-milk cheese and American producers were featured this year, and Wisconsin’s own Uplands Cheese Co. (Dodgeville) earned a prestigious prize, the Resistenza Casearia Award. This is the first time an American cheese company has won.