Author Archives: Jennifer Smith Maguire

by | October 28, 2019 · 10:06 pm

Sustainable Diets and closing the intention–behaviour gap

 

by Kate Platts and Cecile Morris

Diets inextricably link human health and environmental sustainability. Evidence suggests that diets that place the least burden on the planet’s natural resources are also those which have the greatest benefit for human health. Beef cattle and dairy farming globally has a demonstrable detrimental impact on the environment, and finding ways to mitigate environmental risks through modified food consumption has become a key area of study.

In this blog, we discuss the ‘Planetary Health Diet’ launched in early 2019 and introduce our on-going research in the area of consumer attitudes towards sustainable diets. We examine the controversial response from the agricultural and nutrition sectors as well as the media. We also explore UK consumer behaviour in relation to meat and dairy consumption, touching on drivers of meat consumption and barriers to dietary change but also recent market trends. Thinking about the plethora of mainstream media articles reporting on climate change and the need to act now, we ask ourselves: What support is available to those who want to adopt a ‘greener’ diet? What resources would help those struggling to make dietary changes and effectively close the intention-behaviour gap?

If you feel this is of relevance to you, read on!

What do we know so far?

The impact of food systems on the environment

The production of food for human consumption has a significant impact on the environment in which it is produced and on the planet as a whole. It is likely to be the single biggest cause of global environmental change today, with an estimated 20-30% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions emanating from global food systems. However, not all agricultural food systems are created equal. The environmental impact of cattle rearing and farming are by far the biggest contributors to methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions – the most potent and damaging to the earth’s atmosphere. Efforts to increase food chain efficiency can help mitigate the problem but reducing consumption of GHG-intensive foods, while also meeting health goals, is now seen as key. In this, food consumers have a leading role to play in influencing food production and consumption practices, especially in developed countries where food is abundantly available.

Sustainable diets

The term ‘sustainable diet’ has been coined to describe diets with ‘low environmental impacts which contribute to food and nutrition security and to healthy life for present and future generations’, thus signalling an inextricable link between environmental sustainability and human health. While food system-related climate change is undoubtedly a great threat to the planet, the fact remains that 821 million people around the world are undernourished, with 770 million experiencing severe food and nutrition insecurity. Worldwide, the picture is one of gross inequalities with meat and dairy consumption disproportionately concentrated in westernised, developed countries. In this respect, sustainable diets become particularly complex when geographical, social and cultural contexts are considered, and healthy diets do not always necessarily equal environmentally sustainable ones. Finding simple solutions to these deeply complex issues is challenging. Nevertheless, attempts have been made to define global diets that are both ‘healthy’ and ‘sustainable’. The ‘Planetary Health Diet’ proposed by the EAT-Lancet Commission in 2019, attempts to synthesise and distil the research of 37 leading scientists from various disciplines, including human health, agriculture, political sciences and environmental sustainability, into simple food-based dietary guidelines for the global population. It is the first report of its kind to attempt to set universal scientific targets. It recommended a major dietary shift towards fruits, vegetables and legumes and away from meat and dairy consumption, which its authors assert will ease pressure on natural systems and avert 10-11 million deaths per year from non-communicable diseases. However, recognising the burden of hunger and undernutrition in many low- and middle-income countries, the Planetary Health Diet focuses primarily on reducing excessive meat consumption in wealthier continents such as Europe, North America and Australia.

The response to the Planetary Health Diet

The Planetary Health Diet has not been universally endorsed. The Sustainable Food Trust said the report fell short due to ‘a fundamental lack of agricultural understanding’ with some of the main dietary recommendations being ‘incompatible with the food production outcomes of truly sustainable farming systems’.  The Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board UK said that ‘farming, in particular dairy and red meat…makes best use of naturally occurring assets to feed a growing population’, and that red meat and dairy products are ‘an important nutritional part of a healthy, balanced diet.’ Nevertheless, many applauded its publication and a report by the UK Food, Farming & Countryside Commission recommended moving to a more plant-based diet, encouraging people to ‘buy healthy’ and empowering communities to shape and drive their local food systems in a sustainable way. Despite the mixed reviews that the EAT-Lancet Commission report and its proposed Planetary Health Diet have received in mainstream media, the coverage (BBC, 2019a; BBC 2019b; CNN, 2019; Guardian, 2019; New York Times, 2019) will have raised public awareness of the issue. While it seems unlikely that British consumers will adopt, en masse, a vastly meat- and dairy-reduced diet, the tide does appear to be turning towards different dietary patterns in a nation of increasingly conscientious consumers.

Consumer behaviour in the UK

The relationship between dietary choice and climate change may not be obvious, and scepticism about the link between climate change and dietary choice is widespread. Nevertheless, there appears to be a groundswell of support for reducing of meat and dairy intake amongst the British general public. According to a 2019 YouGov poll, while the vast majority of British consumers (73%) eat meat, 14% report that they are following a ‘flexitarian’ diet, which can be described as semi-vegetarian with only the occasional inclusion of meat or fish. Furthermore, 69% of flexitarians and 26% of meat-eaters who do not currently identify as flexitarians report that they’d like to cut down on the amount of meat they eat. Some research suggests that environmental concerns are generally ranked lowest behind animal welfare and health amongst people considering the benefits of a plant-based diet. However, around 83% of UK adults claim to have recently bought food or drinks with ethical certifications, with 38% citing environmental concerns as the primary reason for doing so.

Retail data too show that consumer purchasing habits in the UK are changing, and that meat and dairy substitutes are increasingly popular amongst both vegetarians and active meat-reducers, perceived as both healthy and easy to prepare by adopters. This is something that Quorn, the market-leader in the meat-substitute market, has capitalised on with a new ‘healthy protein, healthy planet’ campaign in 2019, targeting consumers who care about both the health and sustainability agendas. Provision of dairy-reduction information and campaign messages in the UK come predominantly from not-for-profit groups such as Veganuary and the Vegan Society. Campaigns such as ‘Plate up for the Planet – eat to save the world’ position themselves as campaigns for sustainable diets with a strong focus on environmental issues and animal welfare. However, we lack research on how peoples’ intentions and actual behaviours are influenced as a result.

Barriers to closing the intention-behaviour gap for dietary change

There appears to be growing acceptability and accessibility for meat- and dairy-reduced products. Yet, significant barriers exist, even for those motivated to move towards a more sustainable diet. Closing the intention-behaviour gap for dietary change—which is central to individual and planetary health—requires a better understanding of the socio-cultural contexts of individuals’ dietary behaviours. Meat attachment is deeply entrenched in western societies, driven by the historical, social and cultural importance of eating meat. Far from being a result of purely rational decision-making, human behaviour is the result of an intricate interplay between habits, automatic responses to the environment, conscious choice and calculation, and the influence of complex social and cultural values. Thus, an individual may fully intend to reduce meat and dairy consumption yet find themselves unable or unwilling in practice to make the necessary changes.

As such, closing the intention-behaviour gap doesn’t just require a better understanding of intentions and behaviours; it requires better forms of support to enable people to enact dietary changes that support sustainability. Unlike with other positive behaviour changes, there is currently no easily accessible support mechanism for people wishing to reduce meat and dairy intake. This is where our research comes in. We are currently working to identify factors that can influence the reduction of meat and dairy intake, and the mechanisms that would best support individuals and empower them to effect sustainable dietary changes. 

How you can help

We are carrying out research on sustainable diets, and you can get involved. We have developed a baseline survey to try and model attitudes and behaviours towards sustainable diets based on elements of the Theory of Planned Behaviour as well as the Self-Determination Theory. Beyond this, we are also piloting small scale interventions aiming to support behaviour change in people who wish to reduce their meat and dairy intake. The data acquisition part of this project will be live until August 2020. You can get involved by filling in our survey or contacting the principal investigator: Dr Cecile Morris (cecile.morris@shu.ac.uk). 

About the authors:

This blog is based on MSc research (‘Sustainable Diets: Closing the Intention—Behaviour Gap’) by Ms Kate Platts (Katharine.platts@shu.ac.uk), under the supervision of Dr Cecile Morris (Cecile.Morris@shu.ac.uk) in the Department of Service Sector Management, Sheffield Business School of Sheffield Hallam University.

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by | October 1, 2019 · 2:18 pm

An opportunity to ‘have their say’? Community engagement in local alcohol decision-making in England

“Street drinking, begging, fighting, urinating, vomiting… and that wasn’t really a late-night economy, that was [an] afternoon.”(Public health practitioner)

There are a range of health and social issues arising from the local alcohol environment with wide-reaching impacts, not just for those doing the drinking. Decisions made at the local government level can influence the availability and accessibility of alcohol, and therefore potentially reduce these types of harm faced by the public. However, there are a range of interests at play within decisions about the alcohol environment. The potential benefits for the local economy, employment and leisure may be offset by the risks of increased crime, anti-social behaviour and disturbance faced by local communities.

Given this potential for harm, how much influence should communities have in decisions affecting the local alcohol environment? And how best to support them to become engaged in decision-making processes? UK licensing legislation recommends that communities should ‘have their say’ in the allocation of licenses to sell alcohol by local government. But what this process looks like in practice, and the extent to which communities can really shape such decisions is unclear. These questions guided our recent study to explore examples of community engagement in local alcohol decision-making – the CELAD study – with a focus on three local authority areas in the North West, South East and Yorkshire & the Humber regions of England.

“And then we started the residents’ association, which was partly prompted by this, what we considered to be an excess of alcohol outlets and some really dumb opening hours.” (Resident of urban area)

Deep frustration with the impacts of decisions being made by local authorities regarding the licensing of premises to sell alcohol has led to some community groups mobilising to take action. Spurred on by suffering the anti-social behaviour, vandalism and noise associated with a proliferation of alcohol outlets and availability of “cheap booze,” some residents started working together to make formal objections against licensed premises and new licence applications. However, navigating the licensing process is no easy matter for the non-expert, and residents talked of the difficulties of wading through complex “legalese,” frequently facing disappointment when their objections were overlooked.

The practitioners and councillors we spoke to also recognise the difficulties with submitting objections within the alcohol licensing process, with its “impenetrable” language and “intimidating” requirements for evidence. This has led to practitioners in one area working with other regional local authorities to develop an online guidance resource for communities wanting to input to the licensing process. Yet, there is still some doubt about the potential for this guidance to really make an impact on communities’ abilities to be engaged. With continuing budget cuts and restructuring in local authorities, practitioners find themselves increasingly stretched in their work, and there is a sense that promoting this licensing guidance and offering support to communities will not be a priority for all.

“Their experience of alcohol harms in their own words.” (from a practitioner presentation on policy consultation process)

Elsewhere, however, practitioners spoke to us about the added value to their work of gathering community members’ voices around local alcohol issues. A public health practitioner described the difficulties she faced with pushing for a new policy to restrict new licences in areas already saturated with alcohol outlets. It wasn’t until she was able to gather the views and experiences of different groups – residents, local business owners, voluntary groups – relating to alcohol harms that she felt there was a compelling enough story to convince councillors to approve this policy. The accounts of the community, alongside other evidence about the extent of alcohol-related harms in these areas, formed a report recommending the introduction of the policy, which was subsequently approved. A councillor remarked that the policy had indeed “come from the community.”

“So that’s when we looked around to see what we could do, we looked that other cities and towns had gone for cumulative impact policies…  We got in touch with licensing and said can we have a cumulative impact policy? – we’ll look into it.” (City centre resident)

Being part of the evidence-gathering process to support the introduction of new policy seems to be a potentially effective way for community members to influence the local alcohol environment. We spoke with a city centre residents’ group frustrated with their unsuccessful attempts to block the opening of late-night off-licences which they felt were contributing to anti-social behaviour. They described looking to see what kinds of policies have been implemented elsewhere to address this issue, and then pushed the licensing team to consider these options. The local authority then set up a task group, including representatives of the residents’ group, to explore policy options for reducing alcohol-related harms in the city centre. Subsequently, a report recommending the introduction of a new policy was produced, including information gathered by the residents’ group on alcohol-related incidents witnessed by other residents and local businesses. The policy proposal is currently under consideration by the local authority.

“It’s only a small number of people who are ever active in this way.” (Public health practitioner)

These accounts reveal opportunities for community groups to get involved in decision-making and potentially help shape their local environments to reduce harms from alcohol. However, a persistent theme among those we spoke to was the challenge of engaging with all of the people who have a right to have their voice heard.  Those with most capacity and already mobilised to be engaged – like the city centre residents’ group – are those best positioned to push their local authority, and to get involved in consultations and influence alcohol decisions. This then leaves behind those with least capacity to be engaged. And while this is a well-recognised issue across many areas of community engagement, it’s especially worrying in relation to the alcohol environment.

We know that people on the lowest incomes face disproportionately high harms from alcohol compared with those better off. So, if mechanisms to engage communities to shape the alcohol environment favour those with more time and resources to be involved, it may worsen the inequalities we already see in relation to alcohol harms. This means that careful work needs to be done to ensure that engagement in alcohol decision-making is equitable and supports the involvement of those who suffer most from the alcohol environment. And while this may be a difficult task given the increasingly stretched capacity of local authorities in times of austerity, it’s a vital step to helping address critical inequalities relating to alcohol.

About the author

Joanna Reynolds is a Lecturer in Sociology in the Department of Psychology, Sociology and Politics.  The CELAD study was led by Joanna in collaboration with colleagues from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Lancaster University, and the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Salford.  It was funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research.

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by | September 18, 2019 · 10:49 am

Wine, terroir and doing things differently

Elmar* is an organic winemaker. His winery is about an hour’s drive from Cape Town in South Africa, at the end of a steep, rutted dirt track, which itself branches off from a small unpaved road. I feel as if I’ve left the rest of the world behind as I drive to meet him for our interview. His vineyards—2 hectares of which are planted with cabernet sauvignon vines—are incredibly verdant. He tells me that it’s a radically different scene from when he first bought the farm twenty-five years. Then, the land was denuded, and the soil was “dead;” now, every square inch is teeming with life and the ground feels springy under our feet.

photo of a verdant vineyard

Elmar is a small-scale producer, making only about 8,000 bottles a year of his award-winning wine. Working in alignment with organic methods means he can “feel good” about what he does. However, he tells me:

There’s a flipside to every coin. Your crops go down, you don’t get the same volumes, and I don’t believe the premium that you get on your product balances the reduction in the crops. So, economically, it makes more sense to farm conventionally. 

For many of us, wine is simply a matter of consumption, leisure and pleasure. However, wine is also a livelihood. The costs and benefits that follow from Elmar’s decisions about his production methods inform the daily realities of being able to feed and house his family and pay the bills. So, if conventional methods make “more sense,” why work organically? He says:

Because it’s sustainable. You can carry on doing this. Whereas the other way…the day of reckoning is going to come.

And would he consider scaling up his production to meet the potential demand for his award-winning wines? He answers without hesitation:

No. I am making a living, and there’s absolutely no need to go bigger at all. […] The bigger you go, the more people you need to employ, the more marketing you need to do, the more managers you need. And you know, all of those come with their costs. And in the end, what’s it that you take home?

On two fronts, therefore, Elmar is doing things differently. He uses organic rather than conventional farming practices, and his business orientation runs counter to the usual pursuit of profit, growth and market expansion. Nevertheless, his orientation to wine production is absolutely in line with the established culture of fine wine. As he says:

We’re not making wine that is the same as everybody else’s wine. We’re trying to…express place that’s unique. And the wines that you taste here will not taste like anybody else’s wine.

In the terminology of the wine world, Elmar is talking about expressing the terroir of his wines: the idea of a unique link between the place and culture of production (e.g. soil, climate, topography, heritage) and the resulting wine.

 

Over the past ten years, I have interviewed a range of winemakers in South Africa, France and Australia. Some of them (like Elmar) identify as ‘organic,’ others as ‘biodynamic’ or ‘natural.’ Regardless of their chosen label, they share a focus on making wines with minimal or no chemical and mechanical interventions. This tends to mean making wine from grapes grown without synthetic chemical pesticides or fertilizers and harvested by hand, using wild yeasts and little or no added sulphur. Thus, although the term ‘natural wine’ may be contentious in the wine trade, it nevertheless signals what these winemakers have in common: an attempt to work in concert with nature, in the vineyard and cellar. They also share a focus on making wines that express their place, or terroir. For Elmar, this goes hand-in-hand with working in sustainable ways; for most, sustainability is a happy consequence of their desire to give the purest representation of their unique place through their wines.

 

I discussed what we might learn from ‘natural’ winemakers in a SHU public lecture on Taste, Place and Why They Matter. In that lecture, I suggested how their shared commitment to expressing their terroir—what Amy Trubeck calls the ‘taste of place’—guided them in making wine, but also enabled them to do things differently. In a myriad of ways—including rejecting agro-chemicals, prioritizing lower yields, hand picking, and adapting earlier eras’ (nearly extinct) agricultural techniques—their practices differ sharply from the conventional methods of the global industrial agri-food regime. More so, their commitment to terroir was expressed not just in their wine but also through a long-term commitment to, and collaboration with the land and the vines: an alternative to the conventional quest for dominion over natural resources. The ‘normal’ methods of agri-food production, and dominant view of nature as a resource to be exploited have led to crises of food insecurity, land degradation, toxic agricultural working conditions, and threats to biodiversity. It is therefore critical that we understand how some producers come to adopt alternative methods, and how that might help to pave the way for today’s alternatives to become the environmentally-sustainable conventions of the future.

About the author:

Jennifer Smith Maguire is Professor of Cultural Production and Consumption in Sheffield Business School, Sheffield Hallam University. Her research focuses on the construction of markets, tastes and value, primarily in relation to food and wine.

 

*Elmar is a pseudonym.

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Filed under provenance, representations & discourses, research, sustainability, Uncategorized, wine

by | September 10, 2019 · 5:03 pm

What’s Cooking? September 2019

“What’s Cooking?” is a bi-monthly update on all things related to CHEFS. In this inaugural edition: news of CHEFS members who have been busy presenting at conferences in the UK and abroad, submitting grant applications, running workshops, writing journal papers, and developing research projects and networks.

I’m very pleased to report that there are now tangible outcomes as a result of our fantastic discussions at the June CHEFS café event, regarding how to raise our visibility. Thanks to Jason Ruffell’s design expertise, we now have a logo, promotional postcards, and pop-up banners. Please let me know if you’re in need of the banners for a CHEFS-related event, and/or the postcards to distribute to your networks.

To look forward to: our first research blog will be out shortly, and plans are shaping up for two CHEFS events for the coming year, one focused on the cultures and markets of sparkling wine (November) and one focused on place making, community and brewing (January). Specific dates and details will be circulated in the near future.

Cheers, Jen

Please send your updates (up to 200 words) of what you’re up to for the November “What’s Cooking?” edition (to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) by the 28th of October. 

Member Updates (in the order they were received!)

Di Dean, Katie Dunn, Pallavi Singh and Wei Chen have submitted an expression of interest to Leverhulme for a project on ‘Intergenerational Attitudes Towards Household Food Waste: A Cross Cultural Perspective.’

CHEFS was well represented at the June CK conference, with presentations from Saloomeh Tabari, David Egan and Helen Egan (The ‘third place’ role of the café in people’s lives: A comparison of the Islamic café to the Western café); Cecile Morris, Peter Schofield and Craig Hirst (Attitudes towards breastfeeding in public); and Jennifer Smith Maguire (Making tastes, making markets: Thinking about the role of cultural intermediaries in building a fine wine consumption culture in China). You can find their presentations on the CHEFS blog site, via the linked titles above.

In addition to a presentation at the CK conference, Jennifer Smith Maguire presented her research on cultural intermediaries and their role in making a fine wine culture in China at the University of Toronto (hosted by the Department of Sociology and the Culinaria Research Centre) and in Hong Kong, at the International Conference on Wine Markets and Cultures of Consumption—Asia’s first academic Asian wine conference. On the back of the Hong Kong conference, she’s been invited to join the International Partners’ Research Network of the UNESCO Chair for Culture and Traditions of Wine (hosted by the University of Burgundy). Working with colleagues from the University of Leicester and University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Jen submitted a £600k+ application to the AHRC in May, for a three country comparative study of agri-food heritage in developing economies; the application was ultimately unsuccessful. Jen is now developing a bid with a colleague at Lancaster University Management School on sustainability, innovation and food/drink SMEs, which will be submitted to the recently launched Research and Capacity Building Grant Scheme of the Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and the British Academy of Management.

Congratulations to John Dunning, who has recently successfully completed the Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Diploma in Wines and Spirits (DipWSET). This involved over two years of study with extensive theory and blind tasting examinations; there are just over nine thousand people in the world with this qualification.

John Dunning and Jay Idris have been running several workshops with staff at the Oisoi Restaurant Group. The workshops are focused on Customer (Guest) Service and Cultural Awareness. Following the initial success of these sessions, there are plans for further training on service and also wine knowledge. It is intended that, given the wider development of Chinese investment and business in Sheffield (in particular the Sheffield China Town and China UK Business Incubator, CUBI) to extend the sessions to the wider restaurant business community.

Continuing with the engagement with Chinese culture, food and society, John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire are developing a research project focused on the role of wine within cultural gifting practices and norms, looking specifically at the Chinese business community in Sheffield.

Richard Telling hosted a workshop focusing on the Sociology of Family Business at SHU in May. The workshop, delivered in partnership with the Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE), saw Richard deliver one of the keynotes, which focused on his research on adolescent work within the context of family catering businesses. This research project was also presented at the Council of Hospitality Management Education (CHME) conference at the University of Greenwich and has since been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal in the field of hospitality management. He and co-author, Emma Martin, are currently in the process of making revisions to the paper before resubmitting in September.

Anna Stalmirska attended the 9th Advances in Hospitality and Tourism Marketing and Management Conference (9-12 July 2019), hosted in Portsmouth and organised by the University of Portsmouth and Washington State University, and presented a paper: “Food in destination marketing: the issue of ‘local’”. The conference provided a unique forum for attendees from academia, industry, and other organisations to actively exchange, share, and challenge state-of-the-art research and industrial case studies on hospitality and tourism marketing and management. The conference programme showcased the complexity of tourism marketing and management issues, including health and safety issues in tourism and hospitality; health, medical, and wellness tourism; hospitality and tourism product development; food tourism and food tourism marketing; consumer behaviour in tourism and hospitality settings. Anna’s paper was well received by the audience and inspired questions and debate. She received great feedback and was approached to work on joint future research. She also took the opportunity to visit the beautiful city of Portsmouth and its beautiful harbour!

Joanna Reynolds is part of a new collaboration with members of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) at La Trobe University, Melbourne.  Established under the new SHU-La Trobe strategic partnership, the collaboration will explore opportunities for shared learning between Australia and the UK around engaging alcohol licensing processes to protect and promote public health.  Joanna will visit La Trobe later this year to co-facilitate a workshop with licensing stakeholders and practitioners and to develop plans with CAPR for a joint programme of research.

Margo Barker and Anna Sorsby recently augmented their cross-cultural dataset on meat attachment with data collection in UK adults and Hong Kong students. These additions extend a study of meat attachment in student cohorts from the UK, Hungary and Nigeria. The data will be used as the basis of an article that explores relationships between meat attachment and willingness to embrace a meat-free diet.

Margo also published a paper, Exploring the relationship between environmental impact and nutrient content of sandwiches and beverages available in cafés in a UK university, in the area of food and sustainability. The study used a combined index of water use and greenhouse gas emissions to assess the sustainability of university canteen food in relation to its nutrient profile.

Norman Dinsdale attended the “Food and Society” International Conference on Culinary Arts and Sciences (ICCAS) at Cardiff Metropolitan University in Wales in June, and presented a paper: “Meeting the Challenges of Care Home Catering for People Living with Dementia: The Sex ‘n’ Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll Generation.” ICCAS was founded in 1993 by the Worshipful Company of Cooks of London as a forum for culinary artists and scientists from academia and industry to present their work and share ideas.  ICCAS is the only international conference that brings together the two sides of the international food industry: food sciences and food services. The Worshipful Company of Cooks of London is one of the oldest and smallest London Livery Companies and can trace its origins back to the 12th century. The Company was initially responsible for controlling all the catering within the City of London, the ‘Square Mile’. The Company’s purpose nowadays is to contribute as effectively as it can to the pursuit of a good society, through supporting the craft of cooking. A conference gala dinner was held at the Park House Restaurant in conjunction with The Clink Charity.  The Clink Charity’s sole aim is to reduce the reoffending rates of ex-offenders by training prisoners and placing graduates into employment in the hospitality and horticulture industries upon release. The charity works in partnership with Her Majesty’s Prison Service to run various projects within prisons: four restaurants, two horticultural garden schemes and a catering scheme. The conference proceedings can be seen here.

Please send your updates (up to 200 words) of what you’re up to for the November “What’s Cooking?” edition (to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) by the 28th of October. 

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by | June 18, 2019 · 2:42 pm

CHEFS @ Creating Knowledge Conference (17.06.2019)

CHEFS research was well represented at the 2019 Sheffield Hallam Creating Knowledge conference on June 17th 2019, with:

Saloomeh Tabari, David Egan and Helen Egan “The ‘third place’ role of the café in people’s lives: A comparison of the Islamic café to the Western café.” [Tabari CK conference June 2019]

Cecile Morris, Peter Schofield, Craig Hirst “Attitudes towards breastfeeding in public.” [Morris et al CK conference June 2019]

Jennifer Smith Maguire “Making tastes, making markets: Thinking about the role of cultural intermediaries in building a fine wine consumption culture in China.” [Smith Maguire CK conference June 2019]

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by | May 15, 2019 · 8:23 pm

CHEFS Launch Events (15.05.19)

The CHEFS (Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society) research cluster marked its launch with two events on Wednesday 15 May.

A day-long workshop with colleagues from across SHU faculties identified five thematic areas to capture our shared research interests and expertise:

  • Food + processes of cultural production and representation
  • Food + cultural practices and identities
  • Food + inequality and social stratification
  • Food + institutional setting
  • Food + place, development and sustainability

In addition, we developed a programme of cluster activities for the coming year.

The workshop was followed by a networking event with a wider group of colleagues with food-related interests, at which we shared the outcomes of the workshop, and invited further engagement and contributions.

Thanks to the financial support from the CKIP research clusters fund, the participants, and especial thanks to Ruth Knight, Jason Tompkin and the fabulous specialist facilities team for enhancing our day!

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