Category Archives: sustainability

by | June 29, 2023 · 9:40 pm

What’s Cooking, July 2023

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?

We’ve had two fantastic ‘paired papers’ sessions recently, organised by sister foodie clusters:

  • In May, SWEFS (Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society) hosted a session on ‘Food Waste and Working with Vulnerable Participants’ with presentations from Professor Dorothy Yen (Brunel University), and from Dr Chrysostomos Apostolidis (Durham University) and Dr David M. Brown (Heriot-Watt University). Recording here
  • In June, SHARe (Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research) hosted a session on ‘Exploring human appetite and eating behaviour.’ The session, Chaired by Anna Sorsby, featured work presented by Dr Miriam Clegg (University of Reading) and Dr Jordan Beaumont (Sheffield Hallam University). Recording here A more detailed write-up is below!

Full details on the ‘past talks’ page. That wraps up our 22/23 program of talks—thanks to all for organising, presenting, attending, and participating!

Watch this space for what’s to come in 23/24, including a CHEFS-NCEFE collab on sustainable food. This is part of our commitment to support ShefFood’s ‘Local Food Action Plan’, and its aim to ‘connect and enhance communication between food organisations working on different parts of the Sheffield food system.’

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent activities;
  • summary of the recent SHARe paired papers session;
  • resources: Sheffield Food Partnership’s Local Food Action Plan, recently launched;
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the September 2023 edition of What’s Cooking; deadline for submissions (research news and updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to smith1@shu.ac.uk by 30 August.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Huge congratulations to Pallavi Singh and Dianne Dean (co-leads of the SWEFS cluster) and Scott Jones for recognition of their work with Sheffield City Council, around the council’s introduction of a food waste trial scheme. Pallavi, Di, and Scott are carrying out research to better understand the process of household food disposal across selected areas of Sheffield. The project was a shortlisted nomination for the 2023 PRME Faculty Recognition Award for Excellence in SDG Integration!

On 8 June, Sheffield Business School hosted its annual PGR/ECR conference, with the theme ‘Developing Our Research Culture.’ The SWEFS (Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society) research culture was well represented by Nikita Marie Bridgeman, who won best PGR paper for her presentation, “Intergeneration Attitudes Towards Food Waste: A Socioeconomic Status Perspective.” Well done!

More accolades from the SBS PGR/ECR conference: The SHARe (Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research) research cluster was thrilled to have outstanding representation from one of our ECR colleagues, Dr Jordan Beaumont, and GTA, Megan Flint. Meg’s e-poster was entitled “The acceptability, sensory attributes, and emotional response to plant-based meat alternatives under open and closed label conditions.” Jordan’s work, on “An evaluation of tier two weight management services in the Yorkshire and Humber Region” went on to win the Best ECR Paper Prize! We’re thrilled for both of these SHARe colleagues!  It’s brilliant to see how well received both presentations were.

Dr Jordan Beaumont presented a poster on the same work at the 30th European Congress on Obesity (ECO), which was held in Dublin in May. You can view Jordan’s poster, here.

GTA Megan Flint with colleagues Dr Simon Bowles, Dr Tony Lynn and Jenny Paxman have had their work on The acceptability and sensory attributes of plant-based burger products under open and closed label conditions accepted for presentation at the forthcoming Nutrition Society Summer Conference: Nutrition at key stages of the lifecycle – Liverpool 2023. This work was undertaken with Fiona Leroy, a recent intern from Institute Agro Dijon. This work has been chosen by the Nutrition Society Theme Lead for Food Systems as their highlight of the conference and will therefore be presented in the conference opening session, after invited plenary lecture one.  We are so proud that this work has been recognised in this way.  It’s a great opportunity to showcase what the Food and Nutrition team are currently engaged in research-wise.  This is a further feather in Meg’s cap after last year’s postgraduate research win at the same conference, collaboratively hosted by F&N at Sheffield Hallam, University of Sheffield and Sheffield City Council, here at SHU last year.  In further great news, recent work by F&N colleagues Claire Wall and Dr Jo Pearce has also been accepted to be presented at the same conference.  Claire and Jo will be presenting on “Energy and nutrient content of school lunches provided for children attending early years settings within primary schools: A cross-sectional study”, and plan on submitting the full-text article to Public Health Nutrition shortly.

Jo Pearce and Claire Wall have had their paper “School lunch portion sizes provided for children attending early years settings within primary schools: a cross‐sectional study” published online in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. Claire and Jo will also be presenting this work at the Nutrition Society conference next month.

Jordan Beaumont, Claire Wall, Lucie Nield, Jo Pearce, Simon Bowles and Rachel Rundle are undertaking work with the Sheffield Children’s Hospital Complications of Excess Weight (CEW) clinic, with a project exploring food insecurity and childhood obesity. Jordan and Lucie are also nearing the end of their tier 2 weight management service evaluation project, with interviews conducted and transcribed, and project RAs doing the first round of framework analysis. They are looking to hold a dissemination event in November with participants to feedback findings and get input on the recommendations regarding findings and best practice.

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On 13 June, SHARe hosted a CHEFS online talks session with paired papers focussing on research relating to appetite regulation and modulation. The session, chaired by Anna Sorsby, featured work presented by Dr Miriam Clegg (University of Reading) and Dr Jordan Beaumont (Sheffield Hallam University). Recording here.

Dr Miriam Clegg is Associate Professor and Deputy Director (Institute of Food, Nutrition & Health), School Director of Postdoctoral Researchers, and Programme Director BSc Nutrition at University of Reading. Miriam is a Registered Nutritionist with a research interest in appetite, incorporating markers of food intake, eating behaviours and nutritional status including gastrointestinal transit, energy expenditure and hormones related to appetite. Miriam is PI on the BBSRC funded Food4Years Ageing Network. Miriam is Assistant Editor for 3 esteemed nutrition journals (BJN, J Hum Nutr and Dietetics and J Nutr Science). Miriam’s presentation was entitled: Dietary strategies for improving healthy life expectancy – the role of appetite research.

Abstract: Increased feelings of hunger and lack of satiety is linked to reduced adherence to weight loss interventions and difficulties in weight loss maintenance. With 63.8% of the population overweight or obese in England, appetite research has been suggested as a useful tool to reduce calorie intake. On the opposite side of the appetite narrative, a large section of the population are at risk of malnutrition, with or without obesity. UK life expectancy has increased through the 20th and 21st Centuries, yet there is little evidence that these gains in life expectancy are always translated to increased years living in good health for older adults, when compared to previous generations. A nutritious diet is recognised as essential for healthy aging, well-being, reducing the risk of chronic diseases and the rate of functional decline, and changes to lifestyle (i.e. diet, nutrition and physical activity) can maintain or improve body composition, cognitive and mental health, immune function and vascular health in older adults. Research often cites that 1/10 adults aged 65+ is malnourished or at risk of malnutrition based on 2015 statistics, however recent research from Age UK highlights that this may be even higher since the pandemic (2). Contrary to common belief, nutritional needs only decrease marginally with age, and are sometimes higher than the needs of younger individuals. Protein is a good example. The European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism (ESPEN) and the PROT-AGE Study Group have advised that a healthy older adult’s recommended daily protein intake should be increased to 1-1.2g/kg to maintain functionality, independence and fight infection. Protein is also known to be the most satiating macronutrient, and strategies to improve protein intake in older adults need to ascertain if increases in protein intake are like to impact overall food intake. Recent research from our group has used strategies to increase protein intake in older adults, focusing on foods that are liked and consumed by older adults (3). In the future, designing and producing a food environment that meets the diverse needs of older adults should work with them in the creation of bespoke, equitable interventions (4).

  1. Yakubu AH, Platts K, Sorsby A et al. (2023) J Funct Foods 102, 105471
  2. Age UK (2012) Understanding Society: COVID-19 Study
  3. Smith R., Clegg M & Methven L. (2022) Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr DOI:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2022.2137777
  4. Clegg M, Methven L, Lanham-New S et al . (2023) Nutr Bull. 48, 124-133

Dr Jordan Beaumont is a Registered Nutritionist and Lecturer within the Food and Nutrition group at Sheffield Hallam University. Jordan is Course Leader for the MSc Food Consumer Marketing and Product Development and co-lead of the Sheffield Hallam Appetite REsearch (SHARe) cluster. Jordan’s research focusses on obesity and weight management, exploring novel interventions for weight management, the perceptions of health and obesity, and eating behaviours and appetite control.  Jordan’s presentation was on Modulating eating behaviour with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).

Abstract: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a form of non-invasive brain stimulation involving the application of a constant and weak electrical current to the brain, is a popular technique for changing cortical activity and downstream behaviour (1). There has been particular interest in the use of this technique in weight management, with an emphasis on changing eating behaviour. However, despite promising early findings, studies have failed to identify a consistent effect of tDCS across eating-related measures (2, 3). Our research explores the application of tDCS, and through this work we have established stimulation parameters that appear to produce a consistent change in eating behaviour, and identified populations who may benefit from this technique (4, 5). This paired papers talk will overview our recent studies applying tDCS to change eating-related measures across different population, and will consider the therapeutic use of this technique in weight management.

1. Filmer et al. (2014) Trends Neurosci; 37, 742-753, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2014.08.003

2. Fregni et al. (2008) Appetite; 51 (1), 34-41, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2007.09.016

3. Beaumont et al. (2021) Appetite; 157, 105004, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2020.105004

4. Beaumont et al. (2022) Obesity Reviews; 23 (2), e13364, https://doi.org/10.1111/obr.13364

5. Beaumont et al. (2022) Psychosomatic Medicine; 84 (6), 646-657, http://doi.org/10.1097/psy.0000000000001074

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Resources

ShefFood, Sheffield’s Food Partnership, launched its Local Food Action Plan (LFAP) in June. The LFAP is now live on the ShefFood website along with a brand new page for all our key strategic and research documents. You can also read some of the responses to the LFAP from the launch here. The next step for ShefFood is the Sustainable Food Places Silver Award bid which will be submitted in July. Want to get involved? Check out our latest events or email info@sheffood.org.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 2023. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by 30 August.

CHEFS blog

Interested in writing a blog post? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 | May 1, 2023 · 6:00 am

What’s Cooking, May 2023

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?

This spring has witnessed a flurry of activity for all three of our clusters: a great reminder of the diversity of food-related research (and our love of acronyms) here at Sheffield Hallam University:

We’re also excited to expand the CHEFS ‘paired papers’ format with two upcoming events organised by SWEFS and SHARe:

  • 11 May, 3-4.30 on Zoom: SWEFS paired papers session on ‘Food Waste and Working with Vulnerable Participants’ (titles, abstracts on the ‘research talks’ page)
  • 13 June, 3-4.30 on Zoom: SHARe paired papers session on ‘Exploring Human Appetite and Eating Behaviour’ (titles, abstracts on the ‘research talks’ page)

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent activities (including write-ups of the various CHEFS, SWEFS and SHARe events);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (Sheffield Food Partnership (ShefFood) are hosting the launch of the Local Food Action Plan for Sheffield on Thursday 15 June).
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the July 2023 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

In March, Jenny Paxman and Dr Jordan Beaumont organised and led a Sheffield Hallam Appetite REsearch (SHARe) sub-cluster ‘Complete and Finish’ event. Attendees included established and new SHARe members, both staff and students, who have a keen interest in eating behaviours, the hedonics of food and feeding, obesity and weight management or sensory analysis. The purpose of the event was to Shape, Sharpen and SHARe appetite-related research ideas. Getting to know others who are active in our field is a brilliant way to progress any project. For SHARe, the event helped to identify the overarching state of current projects, and to reflect on members orientations as individuals and as researchers. A full write-up of the event, including the Shape, Sharpen and SHARe diagnostic, is available here.

Also in March: CHEFS hosted the English and Welsh Wine Symposium. Co-organisers Professor Jennifer Smith Maguire and Dr John Dunning welcomed over 50 academics and industry professionals, including wine makers, winery owners, wine retailers and wine writers, and hospitality and retail professionals. The half day event explored the current context and future directions of the English and Welsh wine industry. There were two keynote presentations from Masters of Wine: Mr Simon Thorpe, CEO of WineGB, ‘WineGB and its role supporting an emerging wine region;’ Professor Steve Charters, Burgundy School of Wine and Spirits Business, ‘PDOs and Terroir: The Complexities of Wine and Place.‘ In addition, the afternoon included a tutored tasting of English and Welsh wines, a panel discussion featuring a cross-section of industry perspectives, and a networking reception featuring English sparkling wines, with all wines generously selected and donated by WineGB. A full write-up of the event, with photos and links to the keynote presentations, is available here.

In April, the SWEFS (Surplus, Waste and Excess Food in Society) Research Sub-Cluster, co-led by Dr Pallavi Singh and Prof Dianne Dean, organised their introductory workshop and networking event. The workshop brought together 34 colleagues from BTE and National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering (NCEFE) together to discuss current research on Food Waste and develop interdisciplinary collaborations for impact-oriented research on the Global Issue of Food Waste in the Society. Prof Dianne Dean, Dr Pallavi Singh, and Dr Scott Jones shared their work with Sheffield City Council on household food waste collection service, Prof Martin Howarth discussed the current work done by NCEFE, and SWEFS current Sheffield Business School PhD students, Nikita Marie Bridgeman and Ufuoma Arangebi, presented their respective projects. To know more about SWEFS’s work and join the TEAMS channel, please contact Dr Pallavi Singh on p.singh@shu.ac.uk.  A write-up of the event, with photos from presentations, is available here.

Check out Gareth Robert’s latest instalment of his food PhD blog, which includes a tour of recent food sustainability events, and an emerging ‘rich picture’ of Gareth’s PhD on Yorkshire FFE: Food & Farming Events.

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Local Food Action Plan Launch
Date and time: Thu, 15 Jun 2023 18:00 – 20:30 BST
Location: Victoria Hall Norfolk Street Sheffield City Centre S1 2JB
The Sheffield Food Partnership (ShefFood) are hosting the launch of the Local Food Action Plan for Sheffield on Thursday 15 June. ShefFood have co-created the action plan with almost 100 organisations in the city and in collaboration with FixOurFood through a series of 12 workshops to write and co-develop the action plan, which addresses 5 key pillars of a good local food system: food provision, food production, the food economy, health and wellbeing, and the good food movement. The action plan sets out specific commitments to action from diverse organisations across the city; over the next 7 years, these actions will take Sheffield’s food system on a journey to becoming fairer and more sustainable for people and planet. The launch event is free to attend (the community meal is on a pay-as-you-feel basis) and everyone is welcome, but spaces are limited so please do register for your free ticket via Eventbrite. For questions, please get in touch at info@sheffood.org.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 July 2023. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by 29 June.

CHEFS blog

Interested in writing a blog post? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 | February 28, 2023 · 9:57 pm

What’s Cooking, March 2023

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?

Mark your calendars for the following upcoming CHEFS events:

  • 8 March, 1-3pm, on campus: Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research (SHARe) cluster – Complete and Finish Event. Sign up via:https://bit.ly/sharecomplete23
  • 9 March, 4-5.30pm, on Zoom: CHEFS online research talk on ‘Food, Wine and Discourse’ featuring paired papers from Meg Maker (on the potential for a more inclusive wine lexicon) and Joanne Hollows (archival media research on WWII cookery columns). Details including titles, abstracts and joining link here, or email Jen (smith1@shu.ac.uk) for an Outlook invite. (Rescheduled from 9 February.)
  • 25 April, 10-1pm, on campus: the Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society (SWEFS) cluster is hosting an Introductory Workshop and Networking Event, to draw attention to the latest research on food waste at Sheffield Hallam University, and to identify potential areas for further research. The workshop is open to anyone at SHU who either is currently researching on any project related to food waste or is interested in this Global Challenge our society is facing. More details below; full details and registration here.

Check out the latest instalment in Gareth Robert’s PhD blog, which shares updates on his journey as he gets stuck in to the deliberative democracy field, gets to grips with RefWorks, and wrestles with the assignment for the Critical Thinking module.

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (including an introduction to our latest food-focused GTA in Sheffield Business School; research on plant-based foods, and on weight management; a PhD journey milestone; a wine-themed event; details of the first SWEFS workshop);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (a call for involvement in one of five working groups that ShefFood is organising);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the May 2023 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

CHEFS is delighted to welcome a new, food-focused GTAs to Sheffield Business School! Samantha McCormick is working with supervisors Jennifer Smith Maguire and Lucie Nield on the project ‘Responsible Food Production and Consumption: A Community Co-Production Approach’. Sam is hoping to address Sustainable Development Goal 12 by aiming to encourage people in Sheffield to eat a more sustainable, nutritious diet. Sam graduated from BSc (Hons) Nutrition, Diet and Lifestyle at Sheffield Hallam in 2021, and has worked as a Research Assistant with Jen since December 2020. Sam is thrilled to be continuing her studies within the Food and Nutrition subject group at SHU. Since finishing her undergraduate studies, Sam has been working as a Patient Coach on the AWARE-IBD project with the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Team at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals leading on service improvements within the IBD service facilitated by training with the Sheffield Microsystem Coaching Academy. As part of this role, Sam has appeared on BBC Look North, BBC Radio Sheffield and the Sheffield Star describing her story and raising awareness of AWARE-IBD to encourage patients to get involved with the patient-led project. Outside of work and studies, Sam is part of Son de America, a traditional Latin-American dance group, and passionate about Mexican food and culture. Sam also has enjoys learning new languages and speaks Spanish.

Megan Flint is nearing the end of Phase 1 of her PhD, exploring consumer perceptions of plant-based meat alternatives. Megan and the team are on the final push to complete their survey (currently close to 400 participants!). If you could spare a few minutes, please do complete the survey! Megan has also gained ethical approval for a nutrient analysis of plant-based products vs. meat alternatives; this will inform Phase 3 of her PhD, which involves a feeding trial to compare satiating properties of plant- vs. meat-based products.

Jordan Beaumont recently delivered a presentation about his PhD research to the Nutritional Epidemiology Group at the University of Leeds, and will be presenting in April at the British Drinking and Feeding Group meeting on the perceptions of non-invasive brain stimulation as modalities for weight management. Jordan and Lucie Nield are about halfway through data collection for their tier 2 weight management evaluation project, and plan to present findings at the European Congress on Obesity in May.

Ufuoma Arangebi passed her confirmation of doctorate milestone (RF2) with no amendments. Congratulations! Ufuoma’s research, ‘Intergenerational Cross-Cultural Attitudes Towards Household Food Waste’ is supported by supervisors Dianne Dean and Pallavi Singh.

John Dunning has been busy putting the final touches on the CHEFS English and Welsh Wine Symposium, which will take place on 14 March. Organised by John and Jennifer Smith Maguire, the half-day event will welcome over 50 academic and practitioner participants to Sheffield Business School. The event will explore the current context and future directions of the English and Welsh wine industry via: two keynotes, from Simon Thorpe MW, CEO of WineGB, and Professor Steve Charters MW, a tutored tasting of English and Welsh wines, and a panel discussion featuring a cross-section of industry perspectives. The event has been made possible through support from the Department of Service Sector Management, and WineGB.

Jennifer Smith Maguire and co-authors Richard Ocejo and Michaela DeSoucey have recently had their article, Mobile Trust Regimes: Modes of Attachment in an Age of Banal Omnivorousness, nominated for the American Sociological Association’s Consumers and Consumption Section Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, and the Association of the Study of Food and Society Belasco Prize for Scholarly Excellence. The article explores food malls and natural wine as two examples of the ways in which artisanal food/drink forms circulate through global channels while retaining auras of authentic embeddedness and local specificity. Jen gave a talk about the research at Birmingham Business School in February. Jen has also recently joined the Honorary Advisory Board for the Stockholm Gastronomy Conference, which will take place in November 2023 as part of Stockholm’s program of events as the 2023 European Capital of Gastronomy. The overall theme of the conference is ‘Gastronomy Research and Policy: The State of the Art in Europe.’ The conference is organized by The Swedish Academy of Culinary Art and Meal Science, The Swedish Academy of Gastronomy, and The Royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture, and is supported by the International and European Academies of Gastronomy, The Academie International de la Gastronomie (AIG), and European Community of New Gastronomy (ECNG).

SWEFS (Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society), a research subcluster of CHEFS, focusses research on drivers and potential interventions to address food waste.  This can include attitudes towards food waste, behavioural change, cost and management of food waste and social, political, and economic impacts of overconsumption and food waste. We are organising a series of workshops to bring academics, practitioners and other stakeholders together to facilitate discussion and promote academic and impact-oriented research on the SWEFS aim and offer solutions to a major Global Challenge. SWEFS invites you to the first SWEFS Workshop to draw attention to the latest research on Food Waste in Sheffield Hallam University and identify potential areas for further research. Building upon our network we seek to work with people to extend the scope of research into food waste. This workshop is open to anyone at SHU who either is currently researching on any project related to food waste or is interested in this Global Challenge our society is facing.
  • Introductory workshop and networking event
  • 25 April 2023, 10-1
  • Hallam View, Owen Building, Sheffield Hallam University, City Campus
  • Please register for the event here
  • Outline Programme
    • 10.00am – Welcome and Introduction of SWEFS
    • 10.30am – Presentations on recent work on Food waste in Sheffield Hallam University
    • 11.30am – Coffee Break for 15 Min
    • 11.45am – Brainstorming and Identifying key themes to develop research groups
    • 12.30pm – Lunch and networking

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

ShefFood, the food partnership for Sheffield, has launched a brand-new food charter for Sheffield as part of their Bronze to Silver Award bid for Sustainable food places. Over the next couple of months, ShefFood is bringing together food-based organisations from across Sheffield in five working groups to write a multi-stakeholder Action Plan for the city. The working groups (Food Ladders; Compost and Growing; Food Health and Obesity; Good Food Economy and Procurement; Good Food Movement—open meetings) have a series of workshops scheduled over January-March. Next up: Good Food Economy and Procurement workshop, 8 March; Food Ladders workshop, 13 March; Compose and Growing workshop, 23 March; Good Food Movement open workshop, 20 April.  Full dates, locations, and details on how to get involved are available here; to confirm your place at any of the meetings, or for more information, please email <info@sheffood.org.uk>.

Women and Alcohol Conference Workshop: Drinking studies. Crossing Boundaries, 25/26 July 2023. Call for Papers. Deadline: 30 March.

The Women and Alcohol Cluster of the Drinking Studies Network are excited to announce that the women and alcohol project team are holding a conference workshop on women and alcohol as part of the ‘Between the drunken ‘mother of destruction’ and the sober ‘angel of the house’. Hidden representations of women’s drinking in Polish and British public discourses in the second half of the 19th century’ project’. The conference workshop will be designed to encourage conversations across a range of academic and cultural boundaries (eg. geographical, disciplinary, linguistic, chronological, etc) and will provide excellent international networking opportunities. This conference workshop will take place at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw on 25th and 26th July 2023. There will also be the opportunity to attend a special workshop by historian and psychiatrist, Dr Iain Smith, on finding and using medical sources on the afternoon of 24th July 2023. Some sessions will also involve walking tours and museum visits (e.g., Warsaw has two museums dedicated to vodka). Any proposals for round-table discussion themes, hands on mini-workshops, 7-minute stimulus talks, and any interactive approaches are very welcome, please also let us know ideas for any sessions you would like to deliver.  At this stage, we would like expressions of interest to get an idea of who would like to attend and the range of research interests which people may bring. For more information and to express interest in attending please e-mail Dorota Dias-Lewandowska and Pam Lock on dsnwomencluster@gmail.com by Friday 30 March 2023. We hope to see many of you there for this fabulous event!

Gender, social class and contemporary (non)drinking practices in Australia- Online Seminar (28 March 2023).

The Sobriety, Abstinence and Moderation Cluster and Women and Alcohol Cluster invite you to join us for an online seminar exploring themes of gender, social class and contemporary (non)drinking practices with a particular focus on the Australian context. This seminar will take place on Tuesday 28th March from 7-8pm Eastern Australian Time / 9-10am British Summer Time. Please contact emily.nicholls@york.ac.uk if you have any queries. You can attend this seminar using the Zoom link here (Meeting ID: 987 2886 4478, Passcode: 092281).

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

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be May 2023. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by 28 April.

CHEFS blog

Interested in writing a blog post? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 appetite, eating behaviour, food waste, plant-based foods, research, SHARe Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research, sustainability, SWEFS Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society, What's Cooking?, wine

by | September 1, 2022 · 7:07 am

What’s Cooking, September 2022

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?

Check out our most recent research blog post, in which Jo Pearce offers her reflections on a PhD by published work. Jo also gives us a whistle stop tour of her research on how the promotion of healthy eating habits and dietary guidelines can impact on the health outcomes of women and children.

The next instalment of our online research talk series is coming up in October: ‘Children’s Food, Feeding and Inequalities’ will feature research presentations from Irmak Karademir Hazir and Filippo Oncini. The date will be confirmed shortly, with information distributed via the JISC list and our Twitter account (be sure to follow us: @SHU_CHEFS). Meanwhile, details (including full abstracts and the Zoom joining link) are available on our Online Research Talks page. The online talks are open to all, both local and global, students and staff, practitioners and public. Please feel free to share with your networks—all welcome!

After a summer break, our virtual research roundtables are back! The roundtables 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:

  • Friday 16 September, 3.30-4.30pm
  • Thursday 17 November, 4-5pm
  • Wednesday 14 December, 4-5pm

Research roundtable meeting invites (with Zoom link and meeting password) will be sent out shortly via the CHEFS JISC list. Not joined the JISC list yet? See information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage. In the meantime, please email me directly (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) if you’d like me to forward a meeting invite.

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (including a recent publication on baby-led weaning, research on household food waste in collaboration with Sheffield City Council—with a call for participants!, and reflections on the recent Nutrition Society Summer Conference);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (various calls for papers in relation to food/drink and sustainability, craft, time, communication);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the November 2022 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Jo Pearce and Rachel Rundle have had their latest paper on baby-led weaning (BLW) published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. In ‘Baby-led weaning: A thematic analysis of comments made by parents using online parenting forums,’ they report on an interpretive thematic analysis of messages and responses posted on three UK parenting forums, relating to complementary feeding. The analysis found that the characterisation of BLW by parents was varied but they described BLW having an ethos which included trusting the baby, role modelling, developing confidence with food and sharing the social aspects of mealtimes. BLW also offered an alternative to those actively seeking something different or a default for those whose baby refused purees or spoon feeding. BLW felt like a natural progression, with low parental effort for some, and a source of anxiety, stress, choking risk and mess for others. Many parents struggled to find a process (what to eat and when) within BLW, that they could follow. Finger foods were used synonymously with BLW but many mixed/blurred aspects of both TW and BLW. The authors conclude that the interpretation of BLW varies considerably between parents and a broader definition of BLW may be required, along with guidance on the process and purpose of BLW. 

Dianne Dean, Pallavi Singh, Scott Jones, and Nikita-Marie Bridgeman, all from Sheffield Business School, are working with Sheffield City Council to examine household food waste. Flats and households in four trial areas in Sheffield have been selected by Sheffield City Council to take part in a weekly food waste recycling trail, taking place over the next three months. If you live in a trial area (Woodseats/Meersbrook/Norton Lees/Chapeltown/Ecclesfield/Burncross/ Arbourthorne/Gleadless Valley/Darnall) you may have been given a food caddy to collect food waste in, roll of liners for the caddy and an outside food waste bin. The research team are seeking participants that live in one of the four trial areas and are taking part in the Sheffield City Council food waste trial scheme. The research team are interested in better understanding the process of food disposal in the household and data will be collected by means of diaries and semi-structured interviews. If you are in the Sheffield City Council food waste trial scheme, and would like to participate in the research project, please email Professor Dianne Dean (Dianne.Dean@shu.ac.uk) or Dr Pallavi Singh (p.singh@shu.ac.uk).

Jenny Paxman reflected on the Nutrition Society Summer Conference, which took place in July in Sheffield, with a focus on ‘Food and Nutrition: Pathways to a Sustainable Future.’ The Scientific Programme Organisers comprised Jenny and Lucie Nield from Sheffield Hallam University, and Liz Williams and Samantha Caton from the University of Sheffield, and the conference was a collaborative endeavour with teams from Sheffield Hallam University, The University of Sheffield and Sheffield City Council working together throughout. Delegates were effusive in their praise of everything from the main venue at SHU, to the social activities and of course the scientific programme! We welcomed speakers from all over the world, and it was wonderful to reconnect with colleagues and collaborators.

Jennifer Smith Maguire was interviewed by WineLand Magazine (which targets South African wine industry stakeholders) about her collaborative research on wine farmworker heritage stories; the article is due out in this month’s ‘heritage’ issue. Jen will also be presenting ‘Vina aperta and the quest for interconnectedness’ as a keynote at the online symposium ‘Towards an Eliasian Understanding of Food in the 21st Century’, organised by the University of Huddersfield on 7 September. Drawing on the work of Norbert Elias, the talk considers what we might learn about wine, and food more generally, by contrasting the concepts of vinum clausum (a view of wine as a static object, the consumption of which is reducible to discrete variables) and vina aperta (a view of wine as a processual ‘thing,’ the accomplishment of which is fundamentally bound up with the problems of humans’ interdependence with the natural world, others, and with themselves). The paper suggests that foregrounding the processual, interdependent character of wine provides valuable insights into what drives some producers and consumers to pursue alternative market relations that quench a thirst for interconnectedness, while offering potential routes toward more sustainable production and consumption.

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Call for papers: special issue on Food and Sustainability. Deadline 30 September.
The journal Sustainability (impact factor: 3.251) will feature a special issue on the topic of ‘Food and Sustainability’. This Special Issue will focus broadly on how the food and drink industry can meet the challenge of embedding sustainability into its business strategies and operations as well as nudging consumers towards making more sustainable food choices. Many food businesses today are under pressure to demonstrate how their products and services are making a positive contribution towards society. However, one of the biggest challenges for businesses is progressing sustainability initiatives from an added benefit view to an integrated, value-driven to business approach. Deadline for submission is 30 September 2022. Full details here.

Call for papers: XX ISA World Congress of Sociology- Economic Sociology of Craftsmanship. Deadline 30 September.
Andrey Sgorla is coordinating a session on the Economic Sociology of Craftsmanship at the XX ISA World Congress of Sociology. This will be presented in English and Spanish and will take place from June 25th- July 1st 2023 in Melbourne, Australia.  The deadline for authors to submit their abstracts is September 30th 2022 at 24:00 GMT. More information available at Session: Economic Sociology of Craftsmanship (XX ISA World Congress of Sociology (June 25-July 1, 2023)) (confex.com). Any questions about the session or call for papers can be sent to Andrey at afsgorla@gmail.com.

Call for chapters: time and alcohol. Deadline 4 November.
‘It’s Five O’clock Somewhere’: Time, Alcohol, and Other Beverages. Dr Peter Howland is looking for 10-12 chapters which critically explore the history and/or ethnographies of time and the role that it plays in the production, exchange and consumption of drinks and beverages (of any form) to be included in an edited volume. All disciplinary perspectives are welcome and it is hoped that this publication will be included in Routledge’s Critical Beverage Studies series. If you would like to apply to be included in this proposal, please email your name, institutional details, a proposed paper title and an abstract (200-500 words) to p.j.howland@massey.ac.nz. The deadline for applications is 4th November 2022.

Call for papers: Third International Conference on Food and Communication. Deadline TBC (details due in September).
The third conference on Food and Communication brings together researchers who work on the intersection of food and communication. The next one will be held in Örebro, Sweden, 13 – 15th September 2023 and the call for papers will be announced soon in September 2022. More information available at:  Food & Communication Conference – Food & Communication Conference (foodcommunication.net) and you can see some of the previous conference events on Twitter via the hashtag #foodcommunicationconf

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Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking
The next edition of What’s Cooking will be November 2022. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by 31 October.

CHEFS blog
Interested in writing a blog post? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 | June 28, 2022 · 2:49 pm

Researching Wine Farmworker Heritage Stories

Photo of a vineyard

I spent last week in South Africa’s Cape Winelands. This long-delayed trip is part of ongoing research on wine farmworker heritage: a collaboration with Mr Charles Erasmus (of the Wine Industry Value Chain Roundtable, a multi-stakeholder organisation reflecting the entire South African wine industry), and Ms Sharron Marco-Thyse (of the Centre for Rural Legal Studies). The trip had originally been scheduled for May 2020, with the purpose of carrying out two ‘storytelling workshops’ with farmworkers. Covid cancelled that trip, but it didn’t cancel the research: Sharron and Charles conducted the workshops, and I attended via Zoom. In January 2021 we completed the findings report (available here), and when international travel restrictions finally lifted in early 2022, I rebooked my flight.

The question driving the research emerged as an upshot of my work on super-premium wines around the world. For fifteen years, I have looked at how various actors—winemakers, retailers, sommeliers, distributors, writers and so on—create markets for organic, biodynamic, ‘natural,’ and other small-scale wines (or as some like to call them: ‘weird’ wines!). Key to the creation of value for such wines are provenance stories: narratives and representations that offer some degree of transparency as to where a wine was made (often latched to the language of terroir), by whom, how, and when. (For example, I’ve written about these issues in relation to how specialist wine media circulate new criteria of ‘good taste’ and how small-scale ‘grower champagne’ producers challenge established product conventions.) Stories about the heritage of the winery, the authentic rootedness of wines in their place of origin, and the winemaker’s artisanal ethos of hand-crafted viticulture are the lingua franca for such wines. And yet, there is a glaring gap in the weird wine storyverse. While the winemakers I’ve interviewed almost always underscore the essential contribution of farm workers to careful production, those same workers rarely if ever appear in winery marketing communications. While wine intermediaries consistently champion hand-picked grapes and machine-free vineyard management as markers of quality, the actual people who hand-pick the grapes and hand-prune the vines are almost entirely absent from consumer-facing wine stories. In taking note of that void, I started to formulate a question: What would (and could) it look like to include farmworkers as wine provenance storytellers?

With that question in mind, and informed by research on the silencing and/or problematic framing of agricultural labour in food and drink value chains more generally (e.g., excellent work by Maria Touri, Anelyse Weiler and others), I emailed Charles, who I’d first met in 2015 while researching South African organic and biodynamic wine producers. Was he interested in collaborating? Yes! We started to explore what sort of research would be an appropriate way forward. After two unsuccessful large grant applications in 2018 (for an ambitious cross-cultural comparison of farmworkers and provenance in the context of South Africa, India and Ecuador, working with wonderful colleagues Maria Touri and Emma-Jayne Abbots), I decided to scale the research back to a more feasible pilot. It was high time to get back to South Africa and get this research started, one way or another…

photo of Seven Sisters winery

On a Sheffield Hallam-funded trip in January 2019, Charles introduced me to Sharron, and we mapped out a plan. The resulting project design—centred on generating a compelling record of wine farmworkers’ heritage stories—drew heavily on Charles’ and Sharron’s immense experience in working with farmworkers, and Sharron’s expertise in facilitating workshops. On that trip, we also scoped potential case study wineries for the workshops, which led to us finding a ‘home’ for our pilot project: Seven Sisters, one of the very few black owned wine farms in South Africa. Seven Sisters is owned by Vivian Kleynhans. As a black woman winemaker, Vivian is an exceptional, inspiring pioneer; gaining her support for the pilot was truly critical.

The pilot project aimed to:

  • develop a multi-stakeholder perspective on South African wine farmworkers’ heritage stories (reflecting wine farmworkers and wine producers, and export market (UK) wine consumers and intermediaries);
  • demonstrate the potential of farmworkers as active co-creators of winery ethical brand value, and of farmworker heritage stories for ethical value creation in a major export market (UK).

The pilot was made possible through funding from the UK & Ireland Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) Seed Funding Scheme and Sheffield Hallam University (the Developing International Research Funding Opportunities (DIRFO) Scheme); through collaboration with, and contributions in kind from, Seven Sisters, WIVCRT, and CRLS; and through the research assistance of Ms Nikita-Marie Bridgeman, who carried out some of the UK-based components of the study as part of her dissertation for her MSc in Food Consumer Marketing and Product Development at Sheffield Hallam.

photo of author and rental carLast week, two years after those original storytelling workshops, I was back in the Winelands to explore next steps with Charles and Sharron. In a Renault Kwid (a rental car of dubious stamina and fuel efficiency), I covered 609 km in six days, travelling between Cape Town, Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl, and Somerset. I met with a range of wine industry stakeholders to present a summary of the pilot, gather responses to the findings, and solicit views on the value of extending the research. (When and where appropriate, I also asked the pragmatic funding question!)

One of the most important meetings of the trip was the first, which took me back to Seven Sisters. A few hours after my arrival in Cape Town, Sharron and I had a feedback session with some of the original participants in the 2020 farmworker storytelling workshops. It was super to see Vivian again, and to witness first hand that Seven Sisters had not only survived the pandemic (Covid-related restrictions hit the South African wine industry hard), but was thriving. It was also brilliant to finally meet participants in person (and to recognize each other, despite my previous workshop attendance having been limited to that of a floating head on a laptop!).

A central concern of the feedback session was to hear what taking part in the storytelling workshops had meant for participants. What stood out in their memories about the day, and what happened after the workshop? The participants reflected on how the workshops had taken them back to childhood memories of growing up on farms, feelings of freedom to roam and the openness of the space, and amusing tales of high jinks and mischief. They also returned to the theme of expertise, which had come up in the workshops: the intimate knowledge of and attentiveness to the health of the vines; the skilful techniques of pruning and harvesting. Particularly striking were comments about how there had been considerable storytelling after the workshop, both among participants and within their wider farm communities.

To be clear: such feedback does not suggest that farmworker memories, experiences, and everyday conditions are unfailingly positive. The opposite scenario is as (or more) likely, given the glacial rate of transformation of the post-apartheid wine industry and the continued marginalization of farmworkers (see, for example, Agatha Herman’s work). Rather, the feedback session underlined that having a space expressly focused on farmworker stories—happy and heart-breaking, optimistic and tragic—was a validating experience: these memories matter; these stories warrant sharing. In turn, the resulting stories offer a platform for fostering recognition (in Nancy Fraser’s sense of the term) of farmworkers as legitimate contributors to the narratives of South African wine. Such recognition requires a changed perception of farmworkers (on the part of farm and brand owners, the government, the domestic and global wine industry), which is critical for addressing the persistent, unequal distribution of resources and opportunities in South Africa.

Responses at the meetings across the week were overwhelmingly affirmative. This is welcome encouragement as we now seek funding to scale up the pilot, which is likely to involve storytelling workshops oriented to a wider range of wine farmworker contexts (e.g., those working on state-owned, black-owned, and traditional wine farms, and those involved as shareholders of black-owned brands). In the meantime, check out the Farmworker heritage stories pilot study summary and keep your funding fingers crossed for us!

Jennifer Smith Maguire is Professor of Cultural Production and Consumption at Sheffield Hallam University, and leads the CHEFS research cluster. Her research on fine wine cultural producers and intermediaries explores the construction of markets, tastes, and forms of legitimacy and value. She is slowly writing a book about provenance.

 

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Filed under provenance, research, sustainability, wine

by | June 13, 2022 · 7:56 am

Plant-Based Convenience Foods: Consumer Perceptions, Nutrient Profile and Satiety

Sheffield Business School and the Business, Technology, and Engineering College of Sheffield Hallam University recently hosted a PGR and ECR Conference on the theme ‘Does Impact Matter?‘ Congratulations to Megan Flint, who was joint winner of the conference prize for the best e-poster presentation!

Megan’s poster, ‘Plant-based convenience foods: Consumer perceptions, nutrient profile and satiety‘ sets out a clear case for investigating consumers’ perceptions, drivers and barriers with regard to plant-based convenience foods. Plant-based convenience foods sit at a complex junction: on the one hand, plant-based foods may offer a route to improved population health and environmental sustainability; on the other, there are potentially negative health consequences attached to the ultra-processing often underpinning plant-based convenience food safety and palatability.

Megan’s research explores consumers’ health valuation of plant-based convenience foods versus their actual nutritional profile and satiating potential. Doing so offers the potential to assess and improve consumer literacy of plant-based food products, whilst also potentially contributing to new product development and the design of more effective marketing strategies.

Research Questions:

  • What key drivers and barriers are associated with readiness and intent to engage with PB convenience foods in different consumer segments?
  • How does the nutritional profile of PB convenience foods compare with meat-based equivalents?
  • How do PB convenience compare to meat-based equivalents regarding satiating properties?

Research Objectives:

  • To measure current consumer understanding, engagement and health-related motivations to consume PB convenience foods through a cross- sectional survey.
  • To explore consumer experience of PB convenience foods through semi-structured interviews.
  • To analyse and evaluate the nutritional profile of PB convenience foods against suitable meat-based equivalents.
  • To investigate the satiating efficacy of PB convenience foods against a suitable meat-based comparator through an acute feeding study design.

The research design spans three studies: a quantitative cross-sectional design with consumers, complemented by semi-structured interviews;  a comparative analysis of the health value of plant-based convenience foods and meat-based equivalents; and a single-blinded randomised, two-way crossover study will analyse the outcome of plant-based and meat-based test meals on participant appetite and satiety.

Check out Megan’s full award-winning poster here: Megan Flint Poster Presentation 2022

Megan Flint is a Graduate Teaching Assistant and PhD student in the Department of Service Sector Management, Sheffield Business School, working with supervisors Jenny Paxman, Tony Lynn and Simon Bowles.

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Filed under appetite, Diet and health, eating behaviour, plant-based foods, research, sustainability

by | May 3, 2022 · 7:53 am

What’s Cooking, May 2022

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?

Sheffield Business School is currently advertising several GTA PhD scholarship opportunities in Hospitality, Tourism, Events and Food & Nutrition (full details on the FindAPhD page, and on the SHU website), and one of the projects is aligned with CHEFS: ‘Food events, ‘sustainability imaginaries’ and shaping consumer perceptions and behaviour,’ working with potential supervisor team of Jennifer Smith Maguire, Mark Norman and Caroline Westwood. We are keen to attract a strong pool of applicants: please can you share widely with your networks? The application deadline is approaching fast: 18 May, noon. More details below.

The latest instalment of our online research talk series was March 23rd, with ‘paired papers’ focused on pubs, alcohol and the pandemic. Joanna Reynolds shared her analysis of how the media’s representations of restrictions on pubs and bars changed over the course of 2020, and Pallavi Singh shared insights from collaborative research on pubs’ and brewers’ changing responses to value creation over 2020. A recording of the session is available on our ‘past talks’ webpage.

Join us for the next session on ‘Craft, Kinship and Colonialism’ on 30 June, 3-4.30, featuring talks from Thomas Thurnell-Read on biography, kinship and craft gin, and from Belinda Zakrzewska on authenticity, coloniality and Peruvian cuisine. Full details (including full abstracts and the Zoom joining link) are available on our Online Research Talks page. The online talks are open to all, both local and global, students and staff, practitioners and public. Please feel free to share with your networks—all welcome!

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (including a new study on alcohol provision and the experience of public space, and a call for participants in a study about wine gifting);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (details of the CHEFS GTA post with a link to further info and application instructions);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the July 2022 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Joanna Reynolds will be starting a new, two-year study to examine the role of alcohol provision in changing public spaces, with a focus on different areas of Sheffield. The study, funded through the BA / Leverhulme small grants programme, will explore how alcohol provision affects people’s experiences of public spaces, in the context of changing local areas, and the ‘Build Back Better’ agenda, post-COVID. Please get in touch with Jo (Joanna.reynolds@shu.ac.uk) to find out more information about the study.

John Dunning and student researcher Rachel Robinson have been carrying out semi-structured interviews on wine gifting and cultural values. They are keen to recruit further British and Chinese consumers of varying levels of wine involvement. Interested in taking part? You do not have to be a wine expert, or have any particular wine knowledge, to take part and there are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answers in the research; we are interested in your experiences and opinions! Involvement in the study is voluntary. If you are interested in taking part in an interview (conducted via Zoom), or if you’d like to know more about the research, please contact John (j.dunning@shu.ac.uk). Equally: please feel free to pass on this recruitment request to others. Thank you!

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Graduate Teaching Assistant PhD Scholarship opportunity. Deadline: 18 May, noon.

Food events, ‘sustainability imaginaries’ and shaping consumer perceptions and behaviour

This project aims to improve the sustainability of regional food systems through the platform of food events (e.g. food festivals, farmers markets, agricultural shows), focusing on Yorkshire/Northern England. It explores the construction of food sustainability ‘imaginaries’ (Taylor 2004): normative conventions and expectations as to what constitutes sustainable food systems, and how people imagine everyday life (e.g., eating, purchasing, choosing, growing), and their roles, identities and relations to others in a sustainable food system.

Building on previous examinations of food events as drivers of sustainability (Lin & Bestor 2020; Organ et al 2015; Star, Rolfe & Brown 2020; Williams et al 2015), the research will:

(1) generate a comprehensive account of how ‘food sustainability imaginaries’ are constructed through a food event’s experiential, material and communicative dimensions;
(2) devise and evaluate a food event-based intervention through which to enhance consumers’ practices and behaviours in relation to the environmental, socio-cultural and economic sustainability of food.

Potential supervisory team: Jennifer Smith Maguire, Mark Norman, Caroline Westwood.

Deadline for submissions 18 May, noon.

Further project details available on our CHEFS blog page. To discuss the project, please contact Professor Jennifer Smith Maguire (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 July 2022. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by 29 June.

CHEFS blog

Interested in writing a blog post? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

 

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 alcohol, research, sustainability, What's Cooking?, wine

by | July 1, 2021 · 8:30 am

What’s Cooking, July 2021

CHEFS logoWhat’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?

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (including a fantastic range of staff/student research collaborations, a recent webinar on digital storytelling and regional wineries, and Sheffield’s recent Sustainable Food Places Bronze Award);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including details for SHU-based colleagues to register for our 13 September online colloquium on digital innovation and wine, plus upcoming abstract deadlines for the Drinking Studies Network Conference and Gastronomy Summit);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the September 2021 edition of What’s Cooking.

Looking ahead: we’ll be taking a summer break from our monthly virtual research roundtables, but we will be back in September. The roundtables 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:

  • Wednesday 15 September, 3-4pm (after a summer hiatus!)

Further dates will be circulated once the autumn teaching timetable is set. Meeting invites (with Zoom link and meeting password) are sent out via the CHEFS JISC list. Not joined the JISC list yet? See information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage. In the meantime, please email me directly (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) if you’d like me to forward a meeting invite.

Happy reading!

Cheers, Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Some fantastic examples over the past academic year of student/staff research collaborations, with CHEFS colleagues’ research being supported through working with student researchers:

  • Samantha McCormick (BSc Hons Nutrition, Diet & Lifestyle) and Piotr Hipsz (MSc Nutrition for Sport and Exercise) have carried out a range of work (including doing an online media study, managing a Qualtrics survey, doing some qualitative content analysis, and preparing a literature review) as part of a project on digital storytelling, regional identity and the wineries of the Midlands and North region (see next news item!) led by Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning.
  • Megan Flint (MSc Nutrition with Public Health Management) is undertaking a systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of caffeine on appetite regulation with CHEFS colleagues Jenny Paxman, Lucie Nield and Tony Lynn and Hallam alumnus Beatrice Hunt (MSc Nutrition with Obesity and Weight Management).
  • Nazmin Begum and Grace Agi (both MSc Nutrition with Public Health Management students) have been entering 24 dietary recalls in Nutritics. This is part of a study led by Jo Pearce, which aims to look at mineral intake from both dietary sources and supplements in women, 6-12 months post-partum.
  • Katie Hamilton and Rebecca Gristwood (both BSc Hons Food Marketing Management) are currently undertaking longitudinal research exploring the media representation of stigmastised brands (including media data capture, thematic and content analysis) for Paul Beresford and Craig Hirst.
  • George Wheatley (MSc Food Consumer Marketing and Product Development) and Lauren Hellicar (MSc Nutrition with Public Health Management) have worked together with Jo Pearce and Lucie Nield to interview students in the current PG Food and Nutrition cohort about their thoughts on the Work Related Learning module and have suggested some interesting improvements and changes which the course and module teams are taking forwards for 2022 and 2023 iterations of the module.

Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning have been busy over the past several months with a research project on digital storytelling and the regional wineries of the Midlands and North. (You can find out more about regional wineries here.) The project was funded by SHU (via the Connecting with Professional Practice seed corn fund, and Department of Service Sector Management fieldwork fund), which allowed us to bring Samantha McCormick and Piotr Hipsz onto the team as student researchers (see news item above) to assist with the literature review, media audit, and survey and interviews of regional wineries. On 14 June, the team presented initial findings in a SIP/ERDF-funded webinar, aimed at wine sector stakeholders: regional wineries, regional wine retailers and restaurateurs, and representatives of the national and regional WineGB professional bodies. The webinar recording is available on the CHEFS website, and a final report will be available later in the summer.

CHEFS research made an appearance at Sheffield Hallam University’s online Creating Knowledge Conference, 22-25 June (recordings of sessions are due to be online here in the near future). Sue Campbell presented a poster, ‘Developing a cross University Collaborative Brewing Research Consortium’ on behalf of Susan G. Campbell, Jillian Newton, Danny Allwood, Tim Nichol, Hongwei Zhang, and Jennifer Smith Maguire, and Jen Smith Maguire co-presented a session on ‘Galleries, Wineries and Regional Development: Reflections on LTU/SHU Collaboration’ with Jennifer Frost and Warwick Frost, colleagues from La Trobe University’s Department of Management, Sport and Tourism. Jennifer and Warwick will join CHEFS in the autumn to deliver an online research seminar on their food-related research. Details to come!

Great news for ShefFood! Sheffield (as a city) won a Sustainable Food Places Bronze Award in June 2021, a national award for efforts to create a more sustainable, healthy and fair food system in the city. The bid was submitted on behalf of the city by ShefFood which is made up of voluntary, community, faith, social enterprise, local authority, academic and commercial groups (which includes representation from SHU; CHEFS members Lucie Nield and James Ellerby contributed to the bid). ShefFood is an independent partnership who works with groups in the city and was challenged to evidence successful and wide-ranging action on key issues including promoting healthy and sustainable food, tackling food poverty, addressing diet-related ill health, improving access to affordable healthy food and reducing food waste as well as improving the ecological footprint of the food systems. The next challenge: to move from bronze to silver award and work is already underway! Lucie Nield is looking for another ‘foodie’ staff member of SHU to join the ShefFood group. If anyone is interested, please contact her directly at l.nield@shu.ac.uk.

James Ellerby has moved into a new role with Russell Partnership Collection, an international hospitality and food consultancy. James may have left SHU, but we’re delighted that he’s keeping his links with CHEFS, and looking forward to future opportunities to collaborate!

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Digital Innovation and Wine Online Colloquium, 13 September, 14.00-16.00 (GMT).
This event is intended for colleagues based at Sheffield Hallam University and Excelia, and form part of the ongoing exploration of potential collaborations between SHU and Excelia. The two-hour, online event focuses on digital innovation and wine. Please register as a participant by 1st September. Details, including a draft programme for the event, can be found on the CHEFS event page. Relevant perspectives on the colloquium theme of ‘digital innovation and wine’ may include but are not limited to: Marketing and storytelling; Destination branding; Hospitality and tourism management; Experience economy; Cultural production and consumption; Provenance, authenticity, and heritage; Sensory analysis; Practitioner and industry perspectives. Equally, colleagues with no prior research engagement with wine as an empirical field of study are very welcome to take part. Wine is a fertile area of research, providing ample opportunity for inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural comparative work.

Drinking Studies Network Conference, 13-14 November 2021, Virtual Conference.  Abstract deadline: 31 July 2021.
Since its foundation in 2010 the Drinking Studies Network has grown into a dynamic research community of over 300 members worldwide, from an exceptionally wide range of disciplinary and professional backgrounds. To mark our 10th anniversary – at a year’s delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic – we want to bring together members, old and new, to identify and pursue the major challenges in our rapidly developing field. We invite panels and paper proposals that align with any of the main goals of the conference, which are detailed on the event page here. Papers should normally be no more than 20 minutes in length. Panel proposals (3 papers) are welcome; as are alternative formats. In the interests of the event functioning as a collective conversation we will follow our long-standing policy of not running parallel sessions. This means that the number of papers will be restricted. Priority will go to those proposals that most explicitly – and most interestingly – address the conference goals. Proposals should be of no more than 250 words per speaker, accompanied by a short biography of no more than 100 words. Please send to drinkingstudies@gmail.com by 31 July 2021. We welcome proposals from beyond our current membership: email drinkingstudies@gmail.com to join the DSN (this is free) to become eligible. The conference will take place virtually,  and will be free of charge.

Gastronomy Summit 2022, Oxford Cultural Collective/Ulster University, 11-13 April 2022. Deadline for abstracts: 1 August.
The overarching theme of Gastronomy Summit 2022 is: Developing food and drink destinations in ways that benefit local communities. The Summit’s tracks (themes), which should be the focus of submitted abstracts, papers and posters are:

  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for economic, cultural and social regeneration in urban or rural locations
  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for equality and social cohesion
  • Food, drink and regenerative tourism
  • Food, drink and identity
  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for sustainable development
  • Education in culinary arts and gastronomy (e.g. cultural contextualization, links to destination development)

Submissions may relate to conceptual or empirical research and should normally report on completed studies in one or more of the Summit’s tracks (noted above). Abstracts and papers reporting on substantially developed work in progress will also be considered. You may wish to consider the submission of a poster to report on work in progress. You are encouraged to include commentary on the possible application and impact of your research. The research committee encourages submissions from established researchers, as well as those in the early stages of their academic careers, including doctoral students. Deadlines: submission of paper abstracts (300 words) due 1 August, with full papers if accepted due 1 November; submission of poster proposals due 1 November. Details available online in the Call for Submissions and Posters.

Food and Drink Federation free webinars (registration required)

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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 2021. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to j.smith1@shu.ac.uk by Monday 30 August.

CHEFS blog
Interested in writing a blog? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 | May 1, 2021 · 7:42 am

What’s Cooking, May 2021

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?

Check out our most recent blog from Jenny Paxman, which reviews the socio-cultural dimensions of the pandemic, highlights emergent inequalities, challenges and opportunities for change, and considers how these impact on food security, appetite, nutrition, and food behaviours. It’s a great introduction to SHARe: Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research, a new sub-cluster of CHEFS.

The blog site has recently had a major spring cleaning and update. Check out our:

  • New homepage, which highlights our three main clusters of work within the CHEFS, SHARe and SWEFS (Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society) clusters;
  • New events page, with information on our monthly research roundtables, September’s Digital Innovation and Wine event (see below!), SHU Brew, and past events;
  • New research page, with an A to Z of highlights of recent member outputs. Have you got something to contribute? Please let Jen (smith1@shu.ac.uk) know—one entry maximum per member, plus a fun challenge to see who can complete the missing letters (A-G, O-P complete; we need H-N and Q-Z!);
  • Updated members page reflecting some of our new additions. Not on there and would like to be? Please let Jen know (smith1@shu.ac.uk).

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (including consumer perceptions of post-covid hospitality, a mentoring scheme for food studies students, a collaborative workshop on digital storytelling and wine, research on responses to breastfeeding in public (including a call for survey participants), and involvement in two bids to the Transforming UK Food Systems Call);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including 15th May online event ‘Feeding Sheffield Sustainably’, upcoming May events/deadlines, a new report from the Food and Drink Federation, and two upcoming job opportunities at School of Wine & Spirits Business of Burgundy School of Business);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the July 2021 edition of What’s Cooking.

Finally: a reminder of our monthly virtual research roundtables: 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:

  • Wednesday 12 May, 3-4pm
  • Wednesday 16 June, 4-5pm
  • Wednesday 15 September, 3-4pm (after a summer hiatus!)

Meeting invites (with Zoom link and meeting password) are sent out via the CHEFS JISC list (September invite will be circulated shortly).
Not joined the JISC list yet? See information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage. In the meantime, please email me directly (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) if you’d like me to forward a meeting invite.

Happy reading!

Cheers, Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

James Ellerby contributed to Come Back Strong: Hospitality Insight Report, an industry report developed in collaboration with Airship, on consumer attitudes and perceptions in relation to returning to hospitality venues post-covid. James, along with dan Brookman, CEO of Airship also presented the findings via an Institute of Hospitality webinar on 27 April which further laid out the simple steps that businesses of all sizes can take to implement a ‘value exchange’ and introduce a simple loyalty model to generate immediate revenue and drive footfall as the sector reopens.

Jenny Paxman has been working with the SHU Press Office to support ‘Flourish in Food’ a mentoring scheme set up by Hallam alumni Cameron Rigg. The scheme includes 150 food industry mentors paired with Food students all over the country (including Hallam students and alumni mentors). The scheme aims to help students gain general food industry advice, and offer application and interview support, motivation and guidance, and networking opportunities within the food industry. Further details available on Flourish in Food’s website, or email flourishinfoodmentoring@gmail.com.

John Dunning, Jennifer Smith Maguire and Valentina Kirova (at Excelia) will be hosting an online research colloquium on 13th September, on the topic of ‘digital innovation and wine’. Relevant perspectives on the workshop theme of ‘digital innovation and wine’ may include but are not limited to:

  • Marketing and storytelling
  • Destination branding
  • Hospitality and tourism management
  • Experience economy
  • Cultural production and consumption
  • Sensory analysis
  • Provenance, authenticity and heritage
  • Practitioner and industry perspectives

Colleagues with no prior research engagement with wine as an empirical field of study are very welcome to take part. Wine is a fertile area of research, providing ample opportunity for inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural comparative work. Full details are available on the CHEFS Events page. A formal invitation to register to participate will be circulated in mid-May.

Cecile Morris and MSc Nutrition with Public Health Management student Amy Furness are carrying out research on emotional responses to breastfeeding in public. The first phase of the research is a survey, which will act as a gateway to recruit interview participants for a second phase of the project. The survey is accessible here. Please share widely; the survey runs until 31 May. Amy’s research is part of a wider project on attitudes towards breastfeeding in public. The health benefits of breastfeeding are well documented for mothers and babies alike, however, breastfeeding rates remain low in the UK. Negative attitudes towards breastfeeding in public are an important contributing factor in breastfeeding discontinuation. Well publicised examples of breastfeeding mothers being asked to cover up have exacerbated this. We know that some segments of the population are more likely to support / oppose breastfeeding in public and attempts to identify articulated reasons for being unsupportive of breastfeeding in public have provided some valuable background information. However, readers’ comments on articles reporting breastfeeding in public incidents provide evidence of a charged emotional context. Despite this, emotional responses from members of the public to breastfeeding in public have not been rigorously investigated and reported. If you have any questions about the research, please get in touch with Cecile.

CHEFS members have been involved with two recent first stage bids to the second UKRI Transforming UK Food Systems Call. James Ellerby, Alisha Ali and Jenny Paxman were involved in a bid led by University of Sheffield on ‘Creating a micro-urban food system for catalysing capabilities to grow, prepare and share healthy sustainable food.’ Jennifer Smith Maguire was co-applicant on ‘Pulses for health and the environment’, a bid led by Professor Martin Howarth of the National Centre of Excellence for Food Engineering along with SHU colleagues Bipro Dubey and Robert Bradshaw.

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Feeding Sheffield Sustainably, Saturday 15 May, 1-4 pm. Register here.
The Festival of Debate’s Feeding Sheffield Sustainably is a free, half-day conference that will happen virtually on Saturday 15th May, featuring talks from speakers working across Sheffield’s food system. The key purpose of the event is to bring civil society organisations who work in local food production, food waste and food poverty initiatives together to discuss how their work can complement and reinvigorate our approach to food in Sheffield. Speakers include: Prof Duncan Cameron (University of Sheffield, Institute for Sustainable Food); Dr Alexandra Sexton (University of Sheffield, Institute for Sustainable Food); Debbie Mathews (Manor & Castle Development Trust & S2 Food Bank); Gareth Roberts (Sheffield Food Partnership & Regather); Rene Meijer (Food Works); Sam Evans (S6 Food Bank); Martin Yarnit (Food Hubs); Sue Pearson (Heeley City Farm); Fran Halsall (Regather).

SHEFF-Yield webinar, Thursday 27 May, 6pm. Register here.
This is the sixth webinar from the SHEFF-Yield series that aims to teach Sheffield community how and why to grow your own food at home. Speaker Anton Rosenfeld from Garden Organic will give a talk on ‘Practical Organic Growing: Beyond not using chemicals.’

Sheffield Alcohol Research Group Early Career Alcohol Research Symposium, 6-7 July 2021 (online). Deadline for abstracts: 24 May.
This two day online symposium is aimed at early career researchers (ECRs), working in the field of alcohol from both public health and social perspectives. The symposium is designed to give ECRs a new platform to discuss and present their research, in an environment that facilitates research dissemination, mentoring, and networking. Abstract submission and registration are now open. If you wish to submit an abstract, please fill in this form no later than the 24 May 2021. For more details and a registration link, please see attached or visit the website. 

BSA Alcohol Studies Group Virtual Workshop, Wednesday 15th September 2021, ‘Thinking critically about lived experience of alcohol in social science research and teaching’. Deadline for abstracts: 30 May.
Our next study group event will be structured around the broad theme of ‘lived experience’ of alcohol, in social science research and teaching. We aim for this to be a supportive event for open reflection and discussion. We welcome 20 minute presentations in the traditional PowerPoint type format but would consider presentations in other formats which can be delivered online. The event is open to all. The event is free for BSA members. There will be a £10 minimum charge for non-members, though some free places may be available for non-members on request. Please submit your abstract of no more than 200 words by 30th May 2021 to the convenors claire.markham@ntu.ac.uk or kat.jackson@newcastle.ac.uk, or please get in touch if you have any questions or would like more information.

Gastronomy Summit 2022, Oxford Cultural Collective/Ulster University, 11-13 April 2022. Deadline for abstracts: 1 August.
The overarching theme of Gastronomy Summit 2022 is: Developing food and drink destinations in ways that benefit local communities. The Summit’s tracks (themes), which should be the focus of submitted abstracts, papers and posters are:

  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for economic, cultural and social regeneration in urban or rural locations
  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for equality and social cohesion
  • Food, drink and regenerative tourism
  • Food, drink and identity
  • Food, drink and hospitality as catalysts for sustainable development
  • Education in culinary arts and gastronomy (e.g. cultural contextualization, links to destination development)

Submissions may relate to conceptual or empirical research and should normally report on completed studies in one or more of the Summit’s tracks (noted above). Abstracts and papers reporting on substantially developed work in progress will also be considered. You may wish to consider the submission of a poster to report on work in progress. You are encouraged to include commentary on the possible application and impact of your research. The research committee encourages submissions from established researchers, as well as those in the early stages of their academic careers, including doctoral students. Deadlines: submission of paper abstracts (300 words) due 1 August, with full papers if accepted due 1 November; submission of poster proposals due 1 November. Full details available online in the Call for Submissions and Posters.

Food and Drink Federation/Santander UK food and drink export report: Food and Drink Industry Report 2021
The report looks at the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK food and drink exports in 2020, and finds that exports fell by 9.7% in 2020 compared to the previous year, totalling £21.3bn, despite sporadic re-openings of the hospitality and travel sectors. The report includes a focus on exports to four growth markets with insights from specialists in Santander’s export team: the United States, and key members of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The report also looks at the export performance of producers in the UK’s nations and regions, with insights provided by FDF Scotland and FDF Cymru. Report is free to download.

Job opportunities: Burgundy School of Business
The School of Wine & Spirits Business of Burgundy School of Business, in Dijon, France, is looking for initial expressions of interest, in advance of recruiting staff from September 2021. Expressions of interest (and/or requests for further details about the posts can be had from either Nikos Georgantzis nikolaos.georgantzis@bsb-education.com or Steve Charters steve.charters@bsb-education.com. There are two posts available:

  • Research-Teacher in Wine and Spirits Business. This is a senior position for an academic from one of the business disciplines to carry out research and to teach. We are a small but dynamic, multicultural research team who work very cooperatively, and this would suit someone who enjoys working with others. The teaching load is to be determined, depending on overall responsibilities, but will be designed to suit an active researcher. A background in any discipline will be welcomed, but applications from those with experience of general Management, Strategy, Hospitality or Distribution will especially welcome, as will those from academics who have done work specifically in the field of spirits.  Experience in the wine and spirits is not essential, but a willingness to focus on the field is.
  • Research Assistant/Post-Doctoral Researcher. There is a post for a Research Assistant. This is designed either for a PhD student who is looking for some employment in the field whilst they complete their thesis, or for a Post-Doc.  The responsibilities will include assisting our researchers on their projects (especially one funded by the European Union) and a level of teaching, to be determined. It is expected that the successful applicant will have some experience in the field of wine or spirits (or possible more broadly food) and be willing to concentrate on this area in their work.  As we are a School of Business and anticipate that the applicants will submit/have a doctorate in one of these, but we would be willing to consider other disciplines if they were relevant to our focus.

For both positions good written and spoken English is essential (most of our courses are taught in English).  French is helpful but not essential, and support and teaching will be available to any non-French speaking person who is appointed.  A willingness to focus on wine and/or spirits is also a given!

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Call for content for the next edition of What’s Cooking
The next edition of What’s Cooking will be July 2021. 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 24 June.

CHEFS blog
Interested in writing a blog? These are usually 800-1200 words and written for a general audience in an informal style. Blogs can revisit work you’ve already done (e.g., highlighting a recent output/publication); discuss research or research-related activities (teaching, public engagement, etc.) that you are working on; offer your informed take on contemporary food/drink issues or policy; provide a profile on your research. If you’d like to contribute a piece, please get in touch with Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk).

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 | March 1, 2021 · 7:12 am

What’s Cooking, March 2021

 What’s Cooking, March 2021

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?

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS activities (including developments in working with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust; a research output on Chinese wine gifting; new research on lifestyle interventions for women with infertility, and community engagement in alcohol licensing; the 2022 Nutrition Society conference; and a Horizon 2020 bid on food waste and vulnerable consumers);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including a fully funded PhD on food insecurity; online events on drug history and harmful drinking; an archival resource of cookbooks), and the usual call for content for the May 2021 edition of What’s Cooking.

Finally: a reminder of the upcoming monthly virtual research roundtables: 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:

  • Wednesday 17 March, 4-5pm
  • Wednesday 14 April, 2-3pm
  • Wednesday 12 May, 3-4pm
  • Wednesday 16 June, 4-5pm

Meeting invites (with Zoom link and meeting password) have been sent out via the CHEFS JISC list. Not joined the JISC list yet? See information on the very bottom of each CHEFS webpage. In the meantime, please email me directly (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) if you’d like me to forward a meeting invite.

Happy reading!

Cheers, Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

John Dunning is leading an application for the Department of Service Sector Management of Sheffield Hallam University to become a Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Approved Programme Provider (APP). This will mean that we will be able to run a range of WSET wine courses, which will provide great opportunities to widen wine study and research for our students, CHEFS members, DSSM colleagues and other interested parties. Further updates to come as this exciting development progresses. For more information or general enquiries, please contact Dr John Dunning, DipWSET, FWS: J.Dunning@shu.ac.uk

Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning completed the first output from their research on Chinese wine gifting practices, which will appear as a chapter in the forthcoming Routledge collection, Wine and The Gift: From Production to Consumption. Wine is increasingly popular in China, but familiarity with and knowledge of wine remain relatively low. Gifting plays an integral role in the expression of Chinese cultural values, as a process through which respect is demonstrated and social ties and mutual obligations are fostered. However, how does that process unfold when knowledge of the intended honorific meaning of the gift cannot be taken for granted? Semi-standardized interviews, complemented by photo elicitation activities, were conducted with a small sample of Chinese consumers of varying ages and levels of wine involvement. The analysis highlights the contingent and laborious accomplishment of gifting: a well-chosen gift involves a series of adjustments made by the gift-giver, to ensure the gift is calibrated to reflect the giver-recipient relationship, and aligned to the recipient’s capacity to appreciate the gift. In adopting a sociological perspective on gifting as consumption, the chapter contributes novel qualitative insights to existing knowledge of wine-related Chinese consumer behaviour.

Lucie Nield is working with the Fit 4 Baby Research Group based in Teesside and coordinated by Tees Valley Sport. The aim of the research is to develop a co-designed lifestyle intervention for women with infertility. The work encompasses a systematic review, focus groups and interviews with services users and specialists in the field of fertility to look at the existing evidence base and what an ideal intervention would look like. She is involved in the systematic review and on the steering group. A co-designed intervention will then be developed, piloted and evaluated with further review undertaken. A second ‘tweaked’ intervention will then be piloted. The project is funded by Sport England and the systematic review should be complete by early Spring.

Joanna Reynolds has a new PhD student, Filip Djordjevic, starting in March as part of the La Trobe University – Sheffield Hallam University collaboration. Based primarily at La Trobe in Melbourne, but with co-supervision from Jo Reynolds and Paul Hickman (SHU, Department of Psychology, Sociology & Politics), Filip will be conducting research into processes and impacts of community engagement in alcohol licensing decisions in Australia and the UK. He will be exploring several case studies in each country, with particular attention on understanding impacts of engagement for disadvantaged groups. If you would like to know more, or know of any examples of communities influencing alcohol licensing, please contact Jo Reynolds: joanna.reynolds@shu.ac.uk

Jenny Paxman has been involved in a successful bid to host the 2022 annual Nutrition Society Summer Meeting in Sheffield (12-15 July, 2022). The competitive bid to host 400 delegates in the city across the four day conference was put together by Marketing Sheffield’s Conference Team, Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) and the University of Sheffield (UoS). The team in Sheffield brings together local expertise around the theme of food and nutrition and internationally renowned speakers with a view to exploring the pathway to a sustainable food future, looking at areas such as building ethical food systems, eroding nutritional inequalities and sustaining an ageing population. From Sheffield Hallam the conference team is led by Jenny Paxman, Subject Group Leader for Food and Nutrition at SHU, with support from Lucie Nield joined by colleagues from the University of Sheffield, Dr Liz Williams from The Human Nutrition Unit and Dr Sam Caton from The Institute for Sustainable Food.

Dianne Dean has been involved in a Horizon 2020 project bid: ‘A Systemic Approach to Reducing Waste and Producing Food with Improved Accessibility, Welfare, Affordability, and Sustainability that is Transformational and Engaging’ (AWAYSTE). Di, along with Pallavi Singh, Michael Benson and John Kirkby, are responsible for work package 1, which aims to build a deeper understanding of vulnerable consumer’s relationship with food. The research will focus on providing insight into how vulnerable consumers purchase food, what type of food they consume, what is the choice criteria, how they manage their food waste, if/how they recycle and understand their acceptance of novel food and sustainable packaging. This information will help guide other work packages in the project to co-create sustainable food products using new technologies that has the vulnerable consumer in mind.

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Funded PhD studentship on food insecurity; deadline 12th March

Opportunity to apply for a fully funded ESRC CASE PhD studentship, to a suitably qualified candidate, working in the field of food insecurity. Based at the University of Liverpool, working in collaboration with a local social enterprise, Can Cook, we aim to critically evaluate food charity, taking into account diet, food choice, and psychological wellbeing and will look at the optimum process to support food security at the scale of community and household. Further particulars about the studentship can be obtained from either Alan Southern or Charlotte Hardman at the University of Liverpool. Details of how to apply can be found on the University of Liverpool web pages here. The deadline for applications is March 12th.

Zoom roundtable on drug history, 9th March

The Alcohol and Drug Historical Society are hosting a round table on ‘The Past, Present, and Future of Drug History’. The event is free and open to the public. Tuesday, March 9, 2021, 5-7PM (Eastern Standard Time—note the North American time zone!). Registration is required: register here. Participants:

  • Paul Gootenberg, Stony Brook University, “The Globalization of Drug History, 1990-2020”
  • Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, University of Colorado Boulder, “The Historiography of Drugs in East Asia”
  • Emily Dufton, George Washington University, “Still Searching for the Holy Grail: The Long History of Medication Assisted Treatment in the US”
  • Lucas Richert, University of Wisconsin, Madison, “The Intersection of Drug History and Pharmacy History”

DARC research seminar on harmful drinking, 17th March

Drug and Alcohol Research Centre seminar by James Morris on ‘Why harmful drinkers reject change: coping and cognition in maintaining heavy drinking’ on 17th March. Details and registration here.

Digital cookbook archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. It’s Cookbooks and Home Economics Collection has over 10,000 vintage recipe books available for free in digital form (a useful overview introducing the collection is here).

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

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be May 2021. 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 April.

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 alcohol, Diet and health, inequalities & social justice, research, sustainability, What's Cooking?, wine