Category Archives: 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

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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).

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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.

 

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Filed under Diet and health, research, urban & regional development, 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!

 

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

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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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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Filed under alcohol, inequalities & social justice, research

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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