Author Archives: Jennifer Smith Maguire

by | September 23, 2020 · 10:48 am

A critical application of branding to promote acceptance of breastfeeding in public in the UK

picture of a couple and baby being breastfedRecent research by Dr Cecile Morris, Dr Peter Schofield and Dr Craig Hirst of Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) explores how members of the public perceive breastfeeding in public, identifying how different factors are associated with acceptance or opposition. They recommend adopting social marketing and branding as a means to improve the image of breastfeeding and to achieve long term sustainable behaviour of accepting of breastfeeding in public among the members of public.

Building on the above research, SHU doctoral candidate Anuradha Somangurthi aims to critically evaluate the existing UK breastfeeding campaigns and develop a social marketing and branding campaign that will more effectively target those opposed to breastfeeding in public. In this way, the research will contribute to increasing acceptance of public breastfeeding.

Why is it important to support breastfeeding?

Though breastfeeding is a natural process, mothers often require support to get started and sustain breastfeeding. The promotion of breastfeeding is the focus of World Breastfeeding Week, an annual event over the first week of August, and first celebrated in 1992. The theme of Breastfeeding week 2020 was “Support breastfeeding for a healthier planet”.

Malnutrition contributes to one-third of deaths among children under the age of five, often associated with inappropriate feeding practices during the first year of life. As per WHO recommendations, optimal breastfeeding practices include exclusive breastfeeding for first 6 months initiated within one hour of birth and continued for up to 2 years of age and beyond. To achieve global nutrition targets and increase breastfeeding rates, the WHO recommends implementation of campaigns and investing in breastfeeding promotion and support.

There are a range of public health benefits of promoting breastfeeding, especially in reducing mortality and morbidity and improving the wellbeing of mothers and infants. Breastfeeding cuts the incidence of ear, chest and gut infections in children and this helps the NHS save £50 million each year. It also reduces the incidence of breast cancer in women.

Breastfeeding acceptance in public: the situation in the UK

Though the benefits of breastfeeding for improvement of maternal and infant health have been widely acknowledged, the breastfeeding rates in the UK remain suboptimal.

There are multiple factors which affect the mother’s choice to breastfeed or to bottle-feed in public. It is not only a mother’s decision or attitude that matters; a vital role is played by her immediate and social circle. One obstacle to improving UK breastfeeding rates relates to how breastfeeding in public is viewed. Researchers at SHU have found that some mothers in the UK experience embarrassment while breastfeeding in public and hence discontinue breastfeeding. This is echoed by the Infant Feeding Survey of 2010: 47% of mothers in the UK faced difficulty to find a suitable place for breastfeeding and 11% of mothers were stopped or felt uncomfortable feeding in public.

Reducing the embarrassment mothers can experience when breastfeeding in public, and promoting acceptance of breastfeeding in public are thus two ways in which to potentially deliver improved health for infants and mothers, cost savings for the NHS, and reduced environmental impact from the production and use of formula milk.

Why is social marketing useful for promoting breastfeeding acceptance in public?

A range of social marketing campaigns have targeted mothers, their entourage, and health professionals in order to promote breastfeeding in public. Social marketing and branding campaigns have been shown to have some success in changing behaviour and  improving public health as can be seen through different campaigns targeting quitting smoking, water quality and use of fertilisers, teen health and use of bicycle. For example, branding strategies have had positive results in reducing teenage smoking. Branding is different from traditional approaches to public health campaign. By building a positive association between the target audience and the campaign, public health branding can encourage individuals to not only adopt, but also sustain positive health behaviours.

Thus, social marketing can be a powerful tool through which to change behaviour of a target audience, provided the health promotion campaign is based on realistic expectations and plans that reinforce the intention.

What does this research explore?

The overall aim of Anuradha Somangurthi’s PhD research is to critically evaluate social marketing breastfeeding campaigns, in order to design more effective social marketing interventions to increase acceptance of breastfeeding in public. The research will explore how to encourage members of the public to empathise with breastfeeding mothers and think about breastfeeding in public from the point of view of mothers, and how to change the image of human milk.

The first step in the research is to critically evaluate social marketing campaigns in relation to theoretical models of behaviour change. On that basis, a social marketing and branding campaign can be developed, which targets members of the public opposed to breastfeeding in public. Pilot testing of that campaign will determine the impact on levels of acceptance towards breastfeeding in public. The information from the pilot testing can then be used to develop, deploy and evaluate a larger scale social marketing campaign aimed at increasing acceptance of breastfeeding in public.

Potential impact of this research

The potential impact of this research would be increased acceptance of breastfeeding in public, which in turn could increase breastfeeding rates. Increasing breastfeeding rates may contribute to improving maternal health by reducing breast cancer incidence, and infant health by reducing infant infections.

The research also seeks to contribute to a more inclusive society, by helping creating an accepting environment for breastfeeding and improving the mental health of mothers who are at risk of isolation or embarrassment when electing to breastfeed their babies in public. Also, supporting breastfeeding helps in building climate resilience and build a healthier planet as breastfeeding has a very low carbon footprint compared to breastmilk substitutes.

About the author:

This blog is based on PhD research (A Critical Application of Branding to Promote Acceptance of Breastfeeding in Public in the UK) by Ms Anuradha Somangurthi, under the supervision of Dr Cecile Morris (Cecile.Morris@shu.ac.uk), Dr Craig Hirst (C.hirst@shu.ac.uk) and Dr Rachel Rundle (R.rundle@shuc.ac.uk), at Sheffield Hallam University.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Diet and health, research, Uncategorized

by | September 1, 2020 · 9:10 am

What’s Cooking, September 2020

What’s Cooking is an update on all things related to CHEFS: the Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society research cluster at Sheffield Hallam University. What’s been cooking since our last edition?

After a bit of a hiatus, our research blog is back, thanks to Cecile Morris. Check out Energy drinks, caffeine and young adults, which reports on recently published research and suggests that there’s more at play than taste, healthiness perception and energy boosting properties when it comes to how young people use these drinks.

New for autumn 2020: an experiment in online community! CHEFS will be holding monthly research roundtables on Zoom. These meetings are an informal chance to check in, share updates, trade suggestions, ask questions and bounce ideas around. No prep needed—just a chance to meet up and talk CHEFS for an hour. We’ll see how the first three go, and take it from there.

I’ll be sending outlook meeting invites via the CHEFS JISC list. Not joined the JISC list yet? See information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

Below, we have updates on recent CHEFS activities, including:

  • a highly circulated response to the government’s recent obesity strategy (Lucie Nield and Jenny Paxman);
  • research on the impact of open kitchens on the experience of chefs (David Graham, Alisha Ali and Kayhan Tajeddini), the role of wine in Chinese gifting practices (Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning), and storytelling and regional wineries (Jennifer Smith Maguire/CHEFS);
  • funded PhD opportunity, to compare Australian and UK community engagement in alcohol licensing processes (Jo Reynolds);
  • a list of useful resources (relevant to food and drink teaching and research in the context of coronavirus and/or Brexit), calls for papers and the usual call for content for the November 2020 edition of What’s Cooking.

Happy reading!

Cheers, Jen

****************************

Recent CHEFS Activities

Lucie Nield and Jenny Paxman, Registered Nutritionists from the Food & Nutrition subject group, have responded to the Government’s obesity strategy and Public Health England’s ‘Better Health’ campaign. Their article in The Conversation has been very widely circulated, with reports appearing in numerous sources including the Independent, Yahoo News, and Fresh Produce Journal. Whilst Lucie and Jenny are happy that the government has started to address obesity issues more widely and appreciate that something needs to be done, there are many criticisms of the current proposals, some of which were summarised in the article.

David Graham, Alisha Ali and Kayhan Tajeddini’s journal article, ‘Open kitchens: Customers’ influence on chefs’ working practices’ has been published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. The paper investigates the transformation of chefs’ experience through the reorientation of their work environment from closed to open kitchens which now necessitate customer engagement. We build on the research gap, by investigating chefs’ perceptions of this transition, through a Goffmanian lens to theorise the impact of customer interactions. Chefs spoke passionately about how their social reality and shared perceptions of kitchen work are shifting due to exposure to customers. Fundamental, positive changes are occurring for chefs’ working practices and the skills required in meeting the demands of the experience economy. Theoretically, our novel findings offer a fresh perspective of the modern chef and advance the conversation beyond the negative connotations portrayed of kitchen life.

You can download the full paper using this link: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1bZFA59AUIYsdx

Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning presented ‘Wine, Status and Rituals of Gifting in a Chinese Context.’ The presentation reported preliminary findings from their research on the role of wine in Chinese gifting practices. The presentation was part of an online ‘Wine and the Gift’ symposium, with contributors to a forthcoming ‘Wine and the Gift’ edited collection from Routledge, edited by Dr Peter Howland. Presentations from the symposium are available on YouTube: Southern Roundtable (https://youtu.be/ydXzR4NMhrU) and Northern Roundtable (https://youtu.be/19bLTo9j9hk). Jen and John’s paper is in the Northern Roundtable, start approx. 2.43.50.

Jennifer Smith Maguire led a successful bid for Pracademia seedcorn funding for a project, ‘Fostering the development of regional wineries through a focus on storytelling.’ The project aims to build links between CHEFS and small-scale wineries of the Midlands/North region of the UK wine industry. Storytelling is a crucial market device for small-scale wineries (and food/drink SMEs more generally); while the Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally disrupted existing market relations, the pivot to digital platforms and virtual tastings and tours also suggests potential for innovation and business development. The seedcorn funding will enable CHEFS to hire a student researcher to assist with an analysis of regional wineries’ current online storytelling practices and marketing communication development needs. The research is intended to provide a starting point for a 2021 Sheffield Innovation Programme-funded event aimed at regional wineries: an opportunity to showcase CHEFS expertise. More details to come, including an invitation to the wider CHEFS community to get involved.

Joanna Reynolds has been successful in developing a funded joint PhD project with colleagues at La Trobe University, which is currently open for applications. Please share widely!

PhD opportunity: comparing community engagement in alcohol licensing processes in Australia and the UK

There’s an exciting PhD studentship available based at La Trobe University in Melbourne, in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam University, to start in 2021. The focus is on community engagement in alcohol licensing, involving research in both Australia and the UK, and would be suitable for someone with a social science, social policy or public health background. The studentship is open to Australia and NZ citizens, and permanent residents in Australia, and the deadline for applications is 31st October 2020. Please see the advert for more information, and share with colleagues and networks. Feel free to get in contact with Dr. Joanna Reynolds (joanna.reynolds@shu.ac.uk) to discuss further.

****************************

Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Various new resources relevant to CHEFS in the current (CV19/Brexit) moment

****

Call for book chapter abstracts for The Routledge Handbook of Wine Tourism (deadline 25 September).

The present Handbook is therefore conceptualized to provide essential understanding, segmentation, and profiling of markets; consumer behavior; marketing implications, and technological interface to the wine tourism industry. It will also offer recommendations for wine tourism business operators, customers, and destinations to enable them to create, manage, and market wine tourism experiences successfully. This Handbook will also offer theoretical and practical evidence to address the challenges and seize the opportunities in the arena of wine tourism. Therefore, the proposed Handbook aims to provide the updated comprehensive volume to give conceptual, theoretical, and applied advancements concerning wine tourism. The Handbook will not merely be a collection of papers or case studies. Each chapter will seek to contribute to the conceptual understanding of one or more aspects of the topic, supported by a range of suitable examples from global wine tourism contexts.

I welcome contributions from researchers, scholars, and practitioners who are working in different verticals of wine tourism.

Researchers and practitioners who wish to contribute a chapter, are requested to send a proposal / brief abstract in about 400 words highlighting the theme, aim, and research objectives of the chapter. Prospective contributors are also requested to send a brief author’s biography of no more than 100 words to the editor at saurabh5sk@yahoo.com by September 25, 2020.

Complete details and author guidelines will be sent to the contributors on acceptance of the chapter proposal.

With Regards,

Dr. Saurabh Kumar Dixit
Associate Professor and Head,
Department of Tourism & Hotel Management,
North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong – 793022 (INDIA)
Tel: +919436565964 (M), +917005690748 (M)
Email: saurabh5sk@yahoo.com, saurabhdixit@nehu.ac.in

****

Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be November 2020. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Thursday 29 October.

Want to stay updated? Follow us on Twitter (@SHU_CHEFS), subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under What's Cooking?

by | · 7:17 am

Energy drinks, caffeine and young adults

The puzzle:

There has been considerable recent interest in the impact of energy drinks on teenagers and young adults (BBC News 2018a, 2018b, 2019), and there is a statutory requirement to provide a high caffeine warning on drinks containing more than 150 mg/L of caffeine. The overt purpose of adding caffeine to soft drinks is as a “flavouring agent” as it possesses a strong bitter taste. There is, however, evidence that caffeine at concentrations found in colas and within a complex matrix cannot be detected by a trained sensory panel wich has led some to hypothesise that caffeine was added for its mildly addictive properties rather than its taste. The impact of caffeine at higher concentrations such as those typically found in energy drinks remained unclear. Additionally, although we know that labelling and marketing information can generate strong expectations and impact on the experience of consumption and liking of a product, there was little information on whether information relating to caffeine presence influences healthiness perception and intended use in young adults.

The research:

Over 2017-18 and 2018-19, two learning sets of final undergraduate students in Food and Nutrition at Sheffield Hallam University worked under the supervision of Dr Cecile Morris to better understand the role of caffeine in model energy drinks and its impact on liking and perception. The information collected formed the basis for an article co-authored by one of the students, Jessica Elgar, in the academic journal LWT Food Science and Technology.  In brief, a consumer panel of 107 young adults (18-26 years of age) was recruited to assess one caffeinated and one caffeine-free model drink in both a blind condition (i.e. participants had no information about the presence of caffeine) and an informed condition (i.e. participants had information about whether the drink contained caffeine or not). Habitual caffeine intake was also measured.

The findings:

Energy drinks contributed only 5.2% to the participants’ overall caffeine intake, behind coffee and tea, and their consumption pattern appeared to be irregular rather than habitual. This broadly relates to what has been observed elsewhere and suggests that energy drinks may not be problematic with respect to overall caffeine intake. Caffeine in concentrations found in energy drinks could be detected by the participants. Both the presence of caffeine and information that caffeine was present in the drink had small, but significant detrimental effects on overall liking and liking of the bitterness level. This may explain why energy drinks often contain a lot of sugar as the sweetness masks off the bitter taste of caffeine. Healthiness perception also decreased when participants were informed that the drink contained caffeine.

A potentially bigger issue emerged from the findings with regard to how young adults planned to consume the model energy drinks: the most popular intended use for the caffeinated model energy drink, both in blind and informed conditions, was as a mixer with alcohol. This however is unlikely to be attributable specifically to the presence of caffeine in the drink as the most popular intended use for the caffeine-free model drink was also as a mixer with alcohol. Similarly, no significant difference was observed between intended purposes relating to the energy boosting properties of energy drinks.

These results and the enduring popularity of energy drinks suggest that there is more at play than taste, healthiness perception or their even energy boosting properties. Some have hypothesized that their acceptance may be linked to the positive feelings experienced when their consumption alleviates mild caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Unpicking this may prove practically challenging but would be particularly useful, as would exploring the views of younger teenagers.

About the author:

Dr Cecile Morris (Cecile.Morris@shu.ac.uk) is Interim Head of the Department of Service Sector Management, Sheffield Business School of Sheffield Hallam University. Her research focuses on sensory science, food perceptions, consumer attitudes and behaviours, health and food science.

Cecile and Jessica’s article, ‘Impact of caffeine and information relating to caffeine on young adults’ liking, healthiness perception and intended use of model energy drinks’ appears in the October 2020 issue of the Journal LWT: Food Science Technology.

Leave a Comment

Filed under alcohol, caffeine, Diet and health, research

by | June 1, 2020 · 7:32 am

What’s Cooking, June 2020

What’s Cooking is an update on all things related to CHEFS: the Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society research cluster at Sheffield Hallam University. What’s been cooking since our last edition?

In this June 2020 edition, we have updates on recent CHEFS activities, including:

  • research on nutrition in care homes (Lucie Nield), family business dynamics in the catering sector (Rich Telling and Philip Goulding), and agricultural shows as a value creation platform (Caroline Westwood and Phil Crowther);
  • a summary of BMRC colleagues’ work with regional brewers, from Jillian Newton;
  • a call for expressions of interest to get involved with ShefFood, from James Ellerby;
  • a series of webinars aimed at helping the region’s hospitality industry in the context of CV19, organised by James Ellerby and Hospitality colleagues;
  • a call for expressions of interest to explore future collaborative links with La Trobe University for research on socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink, from Jennifer Smith Maguire.

Plus, the usual call for content for the September 2020 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers, Jen

****************************

Recent CHEFS Activities

Lucie Nield is part of a group of colleagues from SHU, UoS & NHS and Social Care partners who have successfully progressed to a Round 2 submission for an NIHR Research for Social Care bid looking at the effect of good nutrition in residential care homes. The bid is a joint venture using qualitative and quantitative methodologies and process evaluation with the aim of co-designing an intervention. If successful in the next round, work will commence in January 2021 where we will be working closely with our health and social care colleagues.

Richard Telling and Philip Goulding’s article ‘Retaining the adolescent workforce in family businesses’ has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Family Business Management. The article explored the linkage between adolescent work, parent-child relationships and offspring career choice outcomes in a family business context. Findings were derived from 15 semi-structured interviews with members of five Italian families operating catering businesses in Yorkshire (UK). The findings were two-fold: first, that the ‘familiarity’ of the family business impacts on offspring decision making, on one hand providing a safety net and base from which the next generation can explore their career options, and a trapping device which can impede their exit on the other; and second, that negative experiences of adolescent work often have a detrimental impact on parent-child relationships and when this happens ‘escaping’ the family business assumes priority for offspring. The paper contributes to our understanding of the stay/go decision faced by next generation family members and suggests that parent-child relationships are instrumental in understanding this and previous stages of the socialisation process of embedding in the family business.

Phil Crowther and Caroline Westwood (along with Greg Langridge-Thomas from Powys Council) had their article ‘The Royal Welsh Show – the nations true cauldron’ accepted for publication in the Event Management journal.  Using the show as a single case study to really examine the catalytic role events have in the context of networks and knowledge economy and in this case, the impact the show has throughout Wales and beyond.  The show (as many UK agricultural shows), dates back to the early 1900’s, recognised as hugely influential on the development of rural areas, their role is high worth, contributing to significantly improving, husbandry techniques, stock quality and enabling the country to meet the needs for increased food production.  This extensive case study included 43 interviews and 1322 questions in addition to archival research.  Through this research a framework was derived entitled ‘Taxonomy of Platforms’ which demonstrates events such as the Royal Welsh Show are value creation platforms, offering a significant role in cultivating networks, across key industries (food, farming, agricultural innovations) both stakeholder and attendee focused.  Future research which Caroline is undertaking focuses on how these shows are also a stage for ‘families of choice’ to convene, share best practices, educate themselves and socialise.  This next stage of the research will consider partly the value of agricultural shows but also how individuals perceive the events in terms of space and place and the connection they have with certain events within the agricultural events calendar.

From Jillian Newton: Hello to all you fellow CHEFS from the Biomolecular Sciences Research arm, just to let you know what we’ve been up to during lockdown and the sheer madness of remote working. As many of you will know we have over the past 6 years been developing links with local microbrewers, running workshops and meetings helping to understand and develop this research area within the BMRC. Early on in 2020 in the heady days of pre-lockdown myself,  (Dr Jillian Newton), Dr Susan Campbell, Dr Daniel Allwood and Dr Tim Nichol set up a brewing research group, which included Tim’s master student  and my a final year project student. These two students have been working within the BMRC and the NCEFE looking at the beer brewing process and its effect on yeast. Since lockdown, however, we have kept ourselves productive in a written capacity. In the joyous haze of lockdown we have somehow put together:

  • A capital equipment grant for kit to complement our established pilot microbrewery plant at NCEFE, to allow SHU researchers and local brewers access to scientific data about brewing processes and the beers they produce. This would contribute extensively to our engagement with local brewers.
  • An application to the Brewers Research and Education Fund which is funded by the very aptly named ‘Worshipful Company of Brewers’ to help create a central hub for the communication of knowledge transfer, bespoke research, teaching and good practice between the craft ale community and researchers.
  • And finally, we have also applied for a GTA PhD studentship, working with Triple Point brewery, looking at one of the ‘Holy Grails’ of brewing: the scientific basis behind yeast flocculation.

All told a very productive brewing related few weeks.

James Ellerby sits on the steering group of ShefFood, a local cross-sector food partnership. James would like to hear from anyone in CHEFS who would be interested in getting involved with the partnership. A few recent ShefFood updates on the local food system include:

  • Food Works has moved their focus to meal deliveries, serving about 3500 meals to date.
  • Food Banks: the need for food has increased 20%. The increase in food prices is having a big impact (e.g. S2 Food Bank currently spends £2000/week to supplement donations).
  • City Farm Federation/Heeley City Farm: the main focus for local growers has been maximising food production, supporting the increased demand for food cooperatives such as Regather. With the loss of farm visits, school tours etc., city farms are needing to consider longer term solutions. There appears to be a need for improved digital infrastructure, e.g. online resources for virtual tours etc.
  • Regather food cooperative: a current success story in this crisis. Household subscriptions for their veg box scheme went from 320 to 650/week in just five days. They have accelerated their own farm development to supplement this and the loss of their events business.
  • Moor Market fruit and veg traders have had some great examples of pivoting businesses and moving to home delivery.
  • Sustainable Food Cities have rebranded as Sustainable Food Places. Some great case studies of other food partnerships/cities and their reaction to the crisis. See: https://www.sustainablefoodplaces.org/coronavirus/

Please let James know (j.ellerby@shu.ac.uk) if anyone is interested in getting involved in/supporting any of the above issues. If anyone is currently working on anything that may be of use to the partnership/local food businesses please do let him know.

James Ellerby and colleagues from the Hospitality Business Management group in Sheffield Business School have organised a webinar series, ‘Covid-19 Support Resources for Hospitality,’ delivered through the ScaleUp 360 programme. The team have developed a series of completely free online resources, available to businesses within the Sheffield City Region. The resources will be delivered as a series of online webinars and will included a blend of taught content, panel discussions and live Q&As. The initial list of topics currently includes:

  • 04/06 – Lessons from the past: restaurant recovery in a global recession
  • 11/06 – The future of service in hospitality
  • 17/06 – Hospitality revenue management for the Covid-19 recovery
  • 25/06 – Innovation: re-think, re-visit, reinvent – Developing resilient hospitality business models 02/07 – Food supply chain challenges and solutions
  • 09/07 – Food and business ethics: making the ‘right’ decisions for the future

Details of each event will be available here. For any further information about the hospitality webinars please contact James Ellerby (j.ellerby@shu.ac.uk).

Please note: in order to participate, businesses must register (free) with the ScaleUp 360 programme via an expression of interest form, and a short registration meeting via a phone call with a business growth coach at ScaleUp 360. Registered businesses are then eligible to an additional range of fully funded enterprise and entrepreneurial skills development opportunities, including Business Workshops; Mentoring; Incubation Support and Networking; Design and Prototyping; 1:1 Business Advice. ScaleUp 360 is part-financed by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020, and is run in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, Barnsley Business and Innovation Centre, Doncaster Chamber of Commerce, and East Midlands Chamber of Commerce.

Jennifer Smith Maguire, in collaboration with Jennifer Frost and Warwick Frost of La Trobe University (LTU), was awarded a 2020 SHU-LTU Collaborative Research Seed Grant. The bid had three objectives: (1) to progress our collaborative research on cultural institutions and wellbeing (initiated through a 2019 LTU-SHU Collaborative Research Seed Grant); (2) to scope a cross-cultural comparative project on wine tourism and the social marketing of terroir; and (3) to develop a cross-university food/drink/culture research network, by promoting CHEFS and SBS expertise to LTU colleagues, and identifying potential areas for collaborative research. The funding was to allow Jen to travel to La Trobe for an intense week of writing, research scoping and networking in June 2020. The global pandemic has put the trip temporarily on hold, but objective 3 is nevertheless underway! To that end: this is a call for expressions of interest from SHU-based CHEFS colleagues who want to develop links with LTU colleagues, with a focus on future collaborative research on the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink. Please submit your information through this google form. As part of the SHU-LTU global partnership, there have already been two rounds (2019, 2020) of collaborative research seed grants, and there is currently a call for joint PhD proposals. The google form is intended to help with proactively building a CHEFS/SHU-LTU research network, to enhance the likelihood of success in bidding for these (and other, external) funds, and developing productive, collegial partnerships. Please get in touch with Jen if you have any questions (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

****************************

Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be September 2020. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Thursday 27 August.

 

Want to stay updated? Follow us on Twitter (@SHU_CHEFS), subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Diet and health, research, urban & regional development, What's Cooking?

by | April 1, 2020 · 12:42 pm

What’s Cooking, April 2020

What’s Cooking is an update on all things related to CHEFS: the Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society research cluster at Sheffield Hallam University. What’s been cooking since our last edition?

In this April 2020 edition:

  • An update on CHEFS activities;
  • Call for content for the June 2020 edition of What’s Cooking.

In these strange and unsettling times, I hope a little CHEFS news will brighten your day.

Stay well!
Cheers, Jen

****************************

Recent CHEFS Activities

Jillian Newton is leading SHU BREW 2020, a one-day conference specifically curated for the microbrewing community, with invited academic and industry speakers, beer tasting and networking. The event is currently scheduled to take place on July 16th, although that is being kept under review due to the coronavirus situation. Nevertheless, the event planning has brought a range colleagues together in new ways, and has already attracted registrations (register here). Find out more on the SHU BREW 2020 webpage.

Paul Beresford and Craig Hirst had their article ‘How Consumers Reconcile Discordant Food Retailer Brand Images’ accepted for publication in the Journal of Marketing Management. The article is based on part of their data from on ongoing longitudinal analysis of discount food retailer switching behaviour. This particular study is positioned in relation to the evolving market conditions of UK grocery retail and offers insight into the consumer led co-creative processes underlying the switching behaviour to discount food retailers by middle-class consumers. Based on phenomenological interviews with ideographic analysis, this research draws on theories related to cultural branding and brand relationships, to demonstrate how consumers negotiate individuated brand meanings. It reveals how, in spite of normative marketplace discourses, consumers are able to reframe and negotiate personally relevant meanings suitable to their own lifestyles and life projects. In so doing, this study contributes to the literature by offering an account of how brand relationships are appropriated in negotiations with stigmatised brand images to make them relevant and suitable for hitherto incongruent market segments. The findings therefore hold relevance for grocery retail managers and other practitioners engaged with the management of low involvement and mundane brands, who will have a better understanding of the process through which such relationships manifest themselves in food retail switching behaviour. Craig and Paul are now pulling together a partner paper that looks at how the news media is playing a role in this process through the stories they report about grocery retail brands over time.

Dianne Dean, Pallavi Singh, Katie Dunn and Wei Chen have been invited to provide an outline bid for the Leverhulme Trust  and is worth approximately £240,000. The bid focusses on food waste which is a global problem, and household food waste in developed countries is a serious concern. However, this trend is also becoming an issue in newly emerging economies where food has traditionally been scarce and optimising food resources was crucial. The team seek to understand what food frugality practices continue to be used and what are being lost. It appears that we have forgotten how to treasure food so this research focuses on how intergenerational attitudes towards food waste are transferred, what food knowledge has been lost and how relearning can be incorporated into family practices. The team hopes to recruit two PhD students to conduct research in both India and China and help to build critical mass for the SWEFS and CHEFS research clusters.

Jennifer Smith Maguire recently had two articles published related to her research on wine and wine markets. “Aesthetic logics, terroir and the lamination of grower champagne” appears in Consumption, Markets and Culture in a special issue on ‘Taste’ and is co-authored Steve Charters (School of Wine & Spirits Business, Burgundy School of Business). Through an analysis of how ‘big brand’ and ‘grower’ champagnes are represented by trade associations, small-scale producers and wine writers, they develop the concept of lamination for making sense of how aesthetic logics shape markets. The other article comes from research with colleagues at La Trobe University: “Seeking a competitive advantage in wine tourism: Heritage and storytelling at the cellar-door,” co-authored with Warwick Frost, Jennifer Frost and Paul Strickland, appears in the International Journal of Hospitality Management. Drawing from interviews with representatives of wineries in southern Australia, the article examines issues of heritage, authenticity, branding and storytelling.

****************************

Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be June 2020. Please send content (updates up to 200 words (images optional), and relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Thursday 28 May. 

Want to stay updated? Follow us on Twitter (@SHU_CHEFS), subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under SHU BREW, surplus waste & excess food in society, Uncategorized, What's Cooking?, wine

by | January 31, 2020 · 12:19 pm

What’s cooking, February 2020

What’s Cooking, February 2020

What’s Cooking is an update on all things related to CHEFS: the Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society research cluster at Sheffield Hallam University. What’s been cooking since our last edition?

Recent additions to the research blog:

Interested in writing a blog? Please let me know!

In this February 2020 edition:

  • An update on CHEFS activities;
  • A list of recent call for papers and event/conference announcements;
  • Call for content for the April 2020 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers, Jen
****************************

Recent CHEFS Activities

whiteboard summaryCHEFS hosted a research workshop on January 9th: ‘Brewing Place’: A workshop on how beer, pubs and breweries have shaped the past and present of Sheffield. The event attracted 14 colleagues from across SHU faculties as well as Sheffield City Council, and focused on identifying potential topics for collaborative research. We identified three avenues for development, including (1) a collaboration between CHEFS and Jillian Newton and Susan Campbell, colleagues in biomolecular sciences, on a Brewery Conference (July 2020), and the potential for developing CPD aimed at the regional microbrewer community; (2) a critical history of Sheffield through the lens of beer, tracing forms of social inclusion/exclusion and urban change through the local history of pubs, brewing, social patterns of beer consumption in different areas of Sheffield; and (3) a project on beer and place branding. The next meeting regarding the Brewery Conference will take place February 6th, 11-12, in Charles 12.5.07. Please join us if you are interested in getting involved.

 

screenshot of journal titleLucie Nield and Jess Stockton, also at SHU, published a paper in January from some work which was done with MSc student dissertations. The paper was a qualitative synthesis which analysed the thoughts and wishes of women during pregnancy in regard to weight management and food safety advice. The findings showed very little commentary relating to food safety advice, but that women had a ‘wish list’ of information they would like during their antenatal care including information and guidance on risks of dieting during pregnancy, elevated BMI during pregnancy, expected and appropriate GWG, safe exercise and where to access it, which foods to eat and what ‘healthy eating’ is, practical meal ideas and recipes, portion control, importance of micronutrients and recommended intake, consequences of GDM, as well as personalized advice that took account of daily pressures, being asked what they would like out of their care experience, and tailored advice that was individually and culturally sensitive. The paper, ‘An antenatal wish list: A qualitative systematic review and thematic synthesis of UK dietary advice for weight management and food borne illness’ appears in the journal Midwifery. A 50-day freeview share link is available here: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1aNfKydlT-UJs.

 

Jennifer Smith Maguire is co-editing the Routledge Critical Beverage Studies series, with Peter Howland (Massey University, New Zealand) and Catherine Tucker (University of Florida, USA). The series offers cutting edge and ground-breaking insights on beverages as vehicles for a wide array of social, cultural, economic, environment and political phenomenon, and welcomes contributions from a wide range of disciplines, from monographs and edited collections to student textbooks. If you have a proposal idea, please let Jen know. The first book in the CBS series will be Wine and the Gift (2021, edited by Peter Howland), in which Jen and John Dunning have a chapter on wine and Chinese gifting culture (research currently underway!).

 

Jennifer Smith Maguire and Penny West (graduate of the SHU MSc Food, Consumer Marketing and Product Development course) have had a paper accepted for the American Sociological Association Annual Conference this summer. The paper, ‘Putting the unusual on the menu: Chefs and the culinary aesthetics of insects’ is a development of Penny’s MSc research, for which she interviewed head chefs of local independent restaurants (n=10) regarding their perceptions of and practices (if any) for including insects as an ingredient in their restaurant menus. Their paper explores the potential for chefs to reframe insects as food, and contribute to the normalisation of an environmentally-sustainable, but highly unusual dietary component. Their analysis highlights how chefs’ culinary aesthetics mediate their capacities, and devices to put the unusual on the menu.

****************************

Call For Papers/Conference and Event Announcements

Registration open: On-line Pub and Brewery Mapping, 6th Feb, London, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: Upstairs at The Old Doctor Butler’s Head (2 Mason’s Avenue, Moorgate, EC2V 5BT) by kind permission of Guild corporate members Shepherd Neame
London’s pubs are being put on the map. Or rather are being mapped onto Layers of London, an interactive online resource which gathers historical maps and layers them up for users to explore how areas have changed. Although several websites exist with some great content about pubs, the idea for this project is to gather those histories and allow online visitors to discover this information within the context of historical maps. The aim is to record as many pubs from as many areas across Greater London as possible, creating signposts to the already existing sources of information on the web and in London’s archives. Join us to hear from project engagement officer Adam Corsini about Layers of London and the #MapLondonsPubs project and how you can get involved. https://www.layersoflondon.org/news-events/maplondonspubs

Registration open: Cultures of Intoxication: Contextualising Alcohol and Drugs Use, Past and Present, 7-8 February 2020, Dublin (UCD)

The programme is now available for the Cultures of Intoxication: Contextualising Alcohol and Drugs Use, Past and Present conference which will take place in the Humanities Institute, UCD on 7-8 February. This conference is organised by Dr Alice Mauger and supported by the Wellcome Trust. To register, please click here. Please note, registration ends on 31 January 2020 and places are limited. For queries, please contact: Dr Alice Mauger on alice.mauger@ucd.ie

 CFP: Geographies of tourism and food: intersecting travel and sustainable food futures. RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2020. Abstract deadline, 7 February 2020.

Conference Dates: Tuesday 1st – Friday 4th September 2020, RGS-IBG, London
Session convenors: Dr Anna de Jong, University of Surrey (a.dejong@surrey.ac.uk) and Professor Gordon Waitt, University of Wollongong (gwait@uow.edu.au)

Bramwell et al (2017) have highlighted the need for greater attention to how tourism and the everyday intersect – to generate new insights into how ways of living might be reconfigured differently. This session aims to bring together scholars with an interest in the role of tourism in thinking through the future of food.

A core strand of geographical thinking is the question of how food offers insights to power, politics and space (Roe, 2006). Geographers have illustrated how the ubiquitous spaces of tourism might offer opportunity to reconfigure normative understanding, practices, processes and relationships that sustain somethings as food, and not others.

As we attempt to engage with changing climates and environments, the curation of difference during travel renders an accessible opportunity to consider how food might be otherwise. The openness to difference, presented through the ubiquity of tourist space, offers politically important moments to (re)consider why we eat the way that we do. Moreover, whilst small scale, the tourist experience is not discrete and localised – but rather illustrates how we might further develop opportunities through the spaces of tourism, that allow us to think through the future of food. Such conclusions are not solitary, yet rather unify touristic and geographic calls to think further about the ubiquity of tourist space in rethinking the politics of food in everyday practices (cf. Waitt and Phillips 2016).

At the same time, however, there are critical limitations in overstating the longer-term legacies of such touristic encounters. Sustainable tourism scholars have identified the challenges of embedding travel practices within everyday routines (Font and Hindley 2017). By way of example, certain food consumed while travelling may not readily become present within our everyday food practices.

This session builds upon work dedicated to studying how eating food whilst on-the-move may bring about change in society at large, from production to consumption, and social relations and everyday practices to ethics.  Submission are encouraged that engage with the future of food through the lens of tourism.

Topics include, but are not limited to:

  • tourism, eating and symbolic transformations of food
  • tourism, food, and the embodied politics of touch, smell, sight and taste
  • tourism and more-than-human in the everyday production and consumption of food,
  • food, tourism and the everyday
  • food, tourism and ethics

Please submit your abstracts (250-300 words) by 5pm Friday 7th February 2020to a.dejong@surrey.ac.uk and gwaitt@uow.edu.au.

Conference announcement: EuroCHRIE Small Groups Meeting – Amsterdam, 1-2 April 2020

The small group meeting (SGM) will be on the topic of food waste as one of society’s greatest financial, economic and ethical challenges. It is of growing interest to many stakeholders in society from policy makers, business and academia (see below ‘call for papers’ for more context). The hospitality and food service sector is not only responsible for 14% of the global food waste, the research interest in this area is growing quickly as well. EuroCHRIE and Hotelschool The Hague believe that it can be seen as an educational duty to contribute to finding solutions to this great problem. Confirmed Keynote speaker – Prof. John Peloza (University of Kentucky): Food Is Life, Don’t Waste It: A Research Agenda for Reducing Food Waste.  More details can be found at https://eurochrie.org/research/sgm-no-2-food-waste/

Call for Evidence: Commission on Alcohol Harm – deadline 17 Feb 2019

The Alcohol Health Alliance UK (AHA) is supporting a Commission on Alcohol Harm, chaired by Baroness Finlay of Llandaff and made up of a panel of expert practitioners, cross-party parliamentarians and health leaders. The UK has not had an alcohol strategy since 2012, despite wide-ranging evidence of the harm alcohol causes. Find out more on our website: https://ahauk.org/commission-on-alcohol-harm/?utm_source=Alcohol+Alert+enewsletter&utm_campaign=e6979fcdd1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1f2e93f1bc-e6979fcdd1-456702369.

The Commission will hold three oral evidence sessions in England, Scotland and Wales in early 2020, and has launched a call for written evidence, with submissions welcomed before the deadline of 12.00 noon on 17 February 2020.

****************************

Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be April 2020. Please send content (updates up to 200 words (images optional), and relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Monday 30 March.

 Want to stay updated? Follow us on Twitter (@SHU_CHEFS), subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized, What's Cooking?

by | November 29, 2019 · 12:01 pm

The Sparkling Symposium, 28 November 2019

photo of symposium programme

Photo credit: Judith Boyle

Many thanks to all who could join us yesterday at Sheffield Hallam University for the Sparkling Symposium, hosted by the CHEFS research cluster and sponsored by Sheffield Business School, Department of Service Sector Management.

The event brought together academics and industry professionals, including wine makers, winery owners, wine retailers and wine writers, to discuss present and future directions of champagne and sparkling wine, with a focus on the British context.

The afternoon began with comments from co-organisers Professor Jennifer Smith Maguire and Dr John Dunning, welcoming 48 participants from across the UK and beyond. The Symposium marked the external launch of the CHEFS (Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society) research cluster, and signalled the group’s commitment to fostering interdisciplinary dialogue and collaboration between academics and practitioners with regard to the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink. What could be a better first topic of discussion than sparkling wine?

John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire open the symposium

Photo credit: James Ellerby

Professor Marion Demossier delivered the first keynote: ‘Critical Reflexions on Terroir,’ in which she explored the questions of ‘What do people do with the notion of terroir?’ and ‘What does terroir do to wine?’ Drawing on 30 years of fieldwork in Burgundy and recent work in New Zealand and the UK, Marion outlined the powerful instruments and strategies that have linked place, taste and quality, and highlighted some of their potential disadvantages, including the homogenization of local cultures and environments, and the loss of authentic connections between people and place.

Marion Demossier delivering keynote Marion Demossier delivering keynote

Rebecca Gibb MW delivered the second keynote: ‘Uncorking the sparkling wine world,’ exploring some of the socio-political struggles and technological advances that underpinned the historical development of champagne. She then provided a critical analysis of the relative successes and failures of other sparkling wines. Drawing comparisons between champagne, cava, prosecco and New Zealand sparkling, Rebecca concluded by outlining some of the key factors for champagne’s enduring market success.

Rebecca Gibb delivering keynote Rebecca Gibb delivering keynote

Following a lively question and answer session, and a break for tea, coffee and cake, the Symposium resumed with Jennifer Smith Maguire outlining ‘A changing market context’ for champagne and sparkling wine in the British context. Jennifer discussed four factors that help to understand the increasingly diverse UK sparkling wine market, highlighting changing attitudes of consumers, producers and market gatekeepers such as wine journalists with regard to luxury brands, hierarchies of cultural legitimacy, desires for the hand-crafted and authentic, and a sense of taste for place and novelty.

Jennifer Smith Maguire delivering presentation

Photo credit: Helenka Brown

Participants were then treated to an entertaining and educational tasting of four champagnes, led by Rebecca and John. A highly scientific poll of participants revealed a wide spread of favourites, with each wine receiving votes for best in show: à chacun son gout!

4 tasting glasses

Photo credit: Emma Martin

John Dunning and Rebecca Gibb leading the tasting

The final major portion of the Symposium was devoted to a panel discussion of the present and future of sparkling wine. The panel included Marion Demossier, Rebecca Gibb, Mr John Mitchell and Dr Gregory Dunn. John, the owner and director of Sheffield’s Mitchells Wines, shared his insights as to the changing tastes of British consumers over his 50 years in the wine and spirits trade as a retailer and wholesaler. Greg reflected on the industry from the perspective of his research, role as the Head of Plumpton College’s Wine Division and experience as the Programme Manager for Plumpton’s MSc Viticulture & Oenology. Greg skilfully chaired the session to ensure ample contributions from the audience of both comments and questions. The panel ended with a final challenge to the panellists, asking for their recommendations as to how best to attract under-30 consumers to English sparkling wine.

Panel discussion (Greg Dunn, Rebecca Gibb, John Mitchell, Marion Demossier) James Ellerby pouring for the reception

After a stimulating afternoon of presentations and discussion—and many rounds of thanks to all involved—the Symposium concluded with a wine and canapé reception. Judging by the volume of conversations in the room, there was plenty of appetite for further discussion.

Thanks once again to all who took part. Until next time!

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under alcohol, identities & rituals, representations & discourses, research, Uncategorized, urban & regional development, wine

by | November 20, 2019 · 9:09 am

Food waste as sustainable luxury: Rachael Colley’s award-winning jewellery

ITAMI posterWe are delighted to announce that Rachael Colley, senior lecturer in jewellery and metalwork at Sheffield Hallam University, was recently awarded the grand prize at the 2019 ITAMI International Jewellery Exhibition in Japan for her series Sha-green. The series presents food waste, in the form of discarded citrus fruit peel, as a sustainable, biodegradable, vegan alternative to the traditionally animal-based luxurious decorative surface finish known as shagreen (ray or shark skin). This scented material comes alive when worn; as it is warmed by the body it emits a subtle fruity fragrance. A statement from The Museum of Arts & Crafts ITAMI about the award is given below.

2019　ITAMI International Jewellery Exhibition Grand Prix

It marks the 22nd ITAMI International Craft Exhibition and this year’s theme is “Jewellery”, which comes every other year. The Museum of Arts and Crafts ITAMI endeavors to broaden the culture of jewellery, where it houses ITAMI College of Jewellery that aims to foster professional jewellery artists, besides holding numerous jewellery exhibitions. As a result of such effort, the recognition of “ITAMI = jewellery” is now widely spread not only in Japan but also abroad where we received 1,132 pieces of works from 339 artists including 138 applicants from 19 countries abroad for the “ITAMI International Jewellery Exhibition” this time, resulting to 97 selected artists out of which 8 had received prizes after strict examination.Rachael Colley jewellery

Among those from diverse backgrounds, the works awarded with prizes as well as those selected demonstrate careful consideration towards relationship with body, nature and social environment. Not to mention that they posses of beauty as jewellery to adorn the body, the manners in which they stimulate the human five senses inspired by the ordinary daily lives are flooded with noteworthy uniqueness, and it is the very point that we the museum highly appreciate as examination criteria. Especially, the Grand Prix work of COLLEY Rachael got high reputation. It was her second participation, and her first entry work in 2017 “Vanitas series, M(eat) et al collection” also got Award for Promising Talent. This was a series of brooches which were designed to refer traditional themes found in the genre of still life painting. These reminded the wearer of the problem awareness by re-creating jewellery out of the waste food materials, and posed a problem about our destiny, pleasure, and so on. What we wearers were most impressed and amazed was the fact that we wear peeled vegetables’ skin. They are just next to our humans’ skin.

close up of pendantAs her previous work left us such impression, this time we were looking forward to her new pieces, which must be exciting and beautiful. Of course, she didn’t betray us to show her excellent “Sha-Green”. As alternative to traditionally animal-based luxurious decorative surface, food waste was presented. We find intelligence in the combination of metal frame and delicate texture of carefully engraved citrus peel. Moreover, it’s fascinating when it is warmed by our body it emits a subtle fruity fragrance.

The juries also admired her work because it consisted of expression, utility, and skill with good uses of materials, concepts and skilled craftsmanship. We would like many people to see and enjoy her attractive jewellery that makes shape something spiritual or thought.

The Museum of Arts and Crafts ITAMI

Rachael Colley accepting the award

Jewellery on display at the museumRachael Colley accepting the award, speech

Photo credits: Rachael Colley and The Museum of Arts & Crafts Itami.

 

 

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under representations & discourses, surplus waste & excess food in society, sustainability

by | November 15, 2019 · 9:21 am

Call for abstracts for the Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture

Routledge have recently commissioned an interdisciplinary editorial team to produce a comprehensive Handbook of Wine and Culture. I am overseeing the sociological contributions; my fellow editors are Steve Charters, Marion Demossier, Jackie Dutton, Graham Harding, Denton Marks and Tim Unwin.

For those of you who research wine, please consider submitting an abstract. Full details in the Contributor Briefing:

Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture Contributor Briefing

Key dates and details:

  • Chapter abstract deadline: 31 January 2020.  Abstracts are 250 words; please indicate which of the sections (1-10, outlined in the Contributor Briefing) you consider the best fit. The final decision on this will come from the editors, but it helps to know your thoughts.
  • Decision on abstracts: 13 March 2020. If accepted:
  • Initial chapter deadline: 31 July 2020. Chapters are 4,000-6,000 words, including references.
  • Post-revision chapter deadline: 30 November 2020.

Please let me know if you’ve got any questions!

Jen

Professor Jennifer Smith Maguire
Sheffield Business School | Sheffield Hallam University
j.smith1@shu.ac.uk

Leave a Comment

Filed under alcohol, research, wine

by | November 1, 2019 · 4:03 pm

What’s Cooking, November 2019

What’s Cooking is a bi-monthly update on all things related to CHEFS: the Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society research cluster at Sheffield Hallam University. What’s been cooking since our last edition?

Our research blog has launched! Be sure to check out our first blogs:

If you’re interested in writing a future blog, please let Jen know (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

Later this month, we’re looking forward to the CHEFS ‘Sparkling Symposium’ (28th November), which focuses on the present and future of champagne and sparkling wine, particularly in the context of the UK market. The event is supported by Sheffield Business School Department of Service Sector Management, and organised by John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire. More info here. The event is fully booked, but there is a waiting list (register here), if further spots open up through cancellations. Hope to see some of you there! Full event information on the CHEFS home page.

In the remainder of this November 2019 edition:

  • An update on CHEFS member activities
  • A list of recent call for papers and event/conference announcements.
  • Call for content for the January 2020 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers, Jen

****************************

Member Updates 

Lucie Nield has been working with a group from SHU (H&W and SBS) and UoS, amongst others, to produce an NIHR grant submission that explores protein intakes in older adults in residential care homes. Lucie attended the briefing session in Manchester on 8th October and the group are currently working towards a Stage 1 application for submission in January 2020. The research aims to deliver novel insights and formulate an intervention into best practice regarding protein provision in this unique and understudied group. The research will consist of 3 arms: 1) Literature Review, 2) Observation of feeding processes and behaviours, 3) Co-production of an intervention.

Lucie Nield has also been working with James Ellerby are part of the steering group for ShefFood—a city-wide food partnership that’s working towards building a sustainable local food system. Earlier this month, some members met to review the outcomes from this summer’s public consultation event, held as part of the Sheffield Food Festival. The steering group (pictured with the ShefFood logo!) currently includes a cross-section of organisations with representatives from Food Works, Regather, Heeley City Farm, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University and the Food Cities programme, run by the Soil Association. To find out how you can support or get involved with ShefFood, you can email the team at info@sheffood.org.uk or follow their news on twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

 

Rachael Colley’s research brings together jewellery, created predominantly using food waste, and ambiguous artefacts for eating. Rachael has had some of her pieces featured in ‘The Experimental Eater’ article in the current issue (issue 3) of Design Anthology UK. Cutlery Combs and for-K-andles could be described as challenging, playful and disgusting. Initial pieces from this series were originally designed and created to feature in Ambiguous Implements, an Arts Council England funded national touring exhibition that she coordinated in collaboration with Feast journal editor Laura Mansfield during 2017-18. The artefacts cross-reference bodily tools for grooming and dining, with the aim of forming abject associations that tread the line between playfulness and underlying feelings of disgust. The pieces re-purpose stainless steel forks and fork handles – predominantly obtained from the Sheffield cutlery industry, but also from Ebay and charity shops – which are then soldered to formed mild steel comb frames and powder-coated. These pieces have recently featured in Steinbeisser’s Experimental Gastronomy events in Amsterdam, which is the subject of ‘The Experimental Eater’ article published in the current issue of Design Anthology UK. You can find out more about her work here. (Photo credit Kathrin Koschitzki)

Caroline Westwood has been invited to speak at the Association of Show and Agricultural Organisations (ASAO) Annual Conference this month, which brings together approximately 200 of the show directors/show managers from around the UK.

Caroline Millman hosted food teachers on 19th September, as part of the SHU Food Teachers Network, bringing together teachers from 15 secondary schools and members of the SBS Food and Hospitality subject groups. The teachers were introduced to Sheffield Hallam and what we can offer their students and schools. In turn, they told us how we could support schools/teachers. It was great to see the teachers forming peer connections and demonstrating how we can help support the local students/teachers find a route through food teaching, whether that be to the food industry or into hospitality. The SHU Food Teachers Network was created through Connecting Professional Practice seed-corn funding, in order to forge links supporting targeted research in secondary school food departments, and promote Sheffield Hallam as a destination for students. Despite the erosion of school food departments, secondary food teachers remain an important route into schools. It is this diminishing school food resource that was the focus of previous research on the food safety awareness of pupils, leading to the creation of foodbugclub.net. Since the introduction of a new GCSE curriculum, a review of this research is timely, along with an investigation into the career pathways of students into higher education food courses. The next teacher-led meeting will take place on 7th November. (Photo credit Jenny Paxman)

Jennifer Smith Maguire published ‘Natural wine and the globalization of a taste for provenance’ as a chapter in The Globalization of Wine (Bloomsbury). The chapter draws from interviews with natural wine makers and cultural intermediaries, and an analysis of fine wine media, to explore how natural wine’s global expansion and increasing legitimacy over the past 10 years have hinged on the ways in which its material and symbolic properties offer points of attachment for the legitimacy frames associated with terroir, authenticity and good taste. The case of natural wine suggests the potentially powerful role of provenance as a market-making device. Jen is also a co-editor of The Handbook of Wine and Culture, a major interdisciplinary collection that has just been commissioned by Routledge. A call for chapter contributions will be forthcoming!

Margo Barker has recently been invited to be Associate Editor of the open access journal, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. There is a potential special issue call coming in 2020 on food choice, which will be circulated via the CHEFS newsletter and other platforms. In addition, Margo recently published a paper in International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice on B Vitamins and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

****************************

Call For Papers/Conference and Event Announcements

CFP: European Institute for the History of Cultures of Food, 4-5 June 2020. Abstract deadline, 15 November 2019.
The European Institute for the History & Cultures of Food invites proposals for panels and individual papers at the ‘Sixth International Convention on Food and Drink Studies‘ to be held at Tours in France on 4-5 June 2020. Submissions are due by 15 November 2019. If you have any questions/ideas or need a session moderator, please contact DSN/IEHCA member Beat Kümin (b.kumin@warwick.ac.uk).

CFP: Wine Active Compounds (WAC2020) conference, Burgundy, 15-17 April 2020. Abstract deadline, 29 November 2019.
The Wine Active Compound (WAC) conference aims to address concepts of activity or inactivity of wine compounds, their impact including vineyard practices, winemaking processes and sensory perceptions of professionals and consumers. One of the main tracks of the conference is ‘Sensory Perceptions of Professionals and Consumers.’ Abstracts deadline: 29 November 2019. For further information, submission details and all conference information, go to: https://ubwac.com/.

CFP: Academy of Wine Business Research (AWBR) conference, Burgundy, 7-10 July 2020. Abstract deadline, 30 November 2019.
The 12th Conference of the Academy of Wine Business Research will be held in Dijon from the 7th to the 10th July 2020, hosted by the School of Wine & Spirits Business of Burgundy School of Business. Tracks are intended for wine, as well as cider, spirits and beer and contributions are encouraged in these areas. Information on submissions to the three streams (competitive papers, extended abstracts, ‘big picture’ papers) can be found here, including the submission template. A special issue of the International Journal of Wine Business Research is intended, to feature the best papers from the conference. For all communications please email: awbr2020@bsb-education.com.

Drinking Studies Network Identities and Diversity Cluster Workshop: 12 December 2019, University of Leicester
The Drinking Studies Network (DSN) is an interdisciplinary network connecting researchers of drink and drinking cultures. One of the DSN clusters, “Identities and Diversity,” is hosting a workshop on “Excess, Moderation and Sobriety: Identities and Diversity in Drinking Studies,” to take place at College Court, University of Leicester, on 12 December 2019. All are welcome to attend. If you’d like to know more, or to join the Identities and Diversity Cluster within the Network, please email Deborah Toner (dt151@le.ac.uk).

CFP: Cultures of Intoxication: Contextualising Alcohol & Drug Use, Past & Present, Humanities Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland, 7-8 February 2020. Abstract deadline, 6 December 2019.
This conference will focus on the cultural meanings and contexts of alcohol and drug use, both past and present. It aims to assess how cultural norms and stereotypes around alcohol and drug use shape policies, practices, treatment and users’ experiences and behaviour. In particular, it seeks to consider how and why those of certain ethnicity, race, religion, gender, sexuality and socio-economic background are deemed prone to excess while others are supposedly abstemious. Abstracts of no more than 250 words, along with a short speaker bio, should be submitted to the conference organiser, Dr Alice Mauger <alice.mauger@ucd.ie> by Friday, 6 December 2019. Panel submissions are also welcome.

CFP: Annual Council for Hospitality Management Education (CHME), 13-15 May 2020. Abstract deadline, 15 January 2020. Sheffield Hallam University will be hosting the 29th Annual Council for Hospitality Management Education (CHME) conference, which includes a Food, Drink and Society Track. Submitted full papers are due 15 January 2020, should be approximately 1500 words, and will be subject to double blind peer review. The call for submissions is here and further information is on the conference website. To contact the conference organizers, email: chmeconf2020@shu.ac.uk.

Advance notice: DSN@10 Conference – save the date – 14-15 November 2020, College Court, University of Leicester
The Drinking Studies Network will host their conference, 14-15 November 2020.

****************************

Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be January 2020. Please send content (updates up to 200 words; and relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Monday 6 January (slightly late publishing date due to the holiday season!).

Want to stay updated? Follow us on Twitter (@SHU_CHEFS), subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage.

Leave a Comment

Filed under research, Uncategorized, What's Cooking?