Slow Food’s Ark of Taste has cataloged hundreds of extraordinary products from around the world. This project has made an important contribution to the documentation of the existence of diverse traditional foods, but it was not enough to guarantee their survival. For this reason, Slow Food has created the Presidia, the working arm of the 'Ark of Taste.’

If Ark products can have an economic impact, they can be saved from extinction. This is the simple reasoning behind the Presidia; small projects to assist groups of artisan producers. Sometimes, it takes just a little to save an artisan food; it’s enough to bring together producers, help them coordinate marketing and promotion, and establish quality and authenticity standards for their product. Other times, when the production of an artisan food is closer to the brink, it takes more: building a slaughterhouse, an oven, or reconstructing crumbling farmhouse walls. Slow Food Presidia work in different ways, but the goals remain constant: to promote artisan products; to stabilize production techniques; to establish stringent production standards and, above all, to guarantee a viable future for traditional foods.

The Presidia products have not only conquered cooks and gourmets, but have won over everyday consumers as well. The success of the Presidia has been highly esteemed, but the most important result of the project is that it has proven that consumers are willing to pay fair prices for Ark products, and that their production can be an economically viable activity.