Category Archives: wine

What’s Cooking, March 2024

What’s Cooking is an update on all things related to SHUFood: Sheffield Hallam University’s food research cluster, comprising, CHEFS (exploring the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink), SWEFS (exploring drivers and interventions to address food waste), and SHARe (exploring appetite regulation and modulation). What’s been cooking since our last edition?

We’re delighted to announce something new for Hallam-based SHUFood members: SHUFood Research Chats! These monthly online meetings offer a space to talk all things research: showcase work, provide updates, discuss plans, explore collaborations… They have evolved from the Food and Nutrition subject group’s long and happy history of research chats, and we’re looking forward to welcoming a wider SHUFood group! You can bring along updates to share, or just come along to see what everyone else is up to—all are welcome. The first SHUFood chat will be on Wednesday 10 April (15:30 to 16:30) via MS Teams. If you’re interested, please email Dr Jordan Beaumont (j.beaumont@shu.ac.uk) for more information and a calendar invite.

We’re busily preparing for 24 April, when we’ll be holding our SHUFood Annual Discourse event (2-5pm on campus). We’re excited to be hosting three fabulous speakers who reflect our three SHUFood themes: Professor Graham Finlayson (University of Leeds) will be talking about sugar replacement and appetite, Dr Megan Blake (University of Sheffield) will be talking about the ontological status of surplus food, and Professor Benedetta Cappellini (Durham University) will be talking about foodcare and mothers’ food practices. Full details to come on the SHUFood Events page. We’re also inviting all SHUFood researchers from any career stage to share existing research posters as part of the event—see details below in the ‘Resources and Calls for Papers’ section.

Finally, some exciting local news: Sheffield has been awarded the Silver Sustainable Food Places award! We’re very proud to be a named organisation on the application, and delighted that so many SHUFood and Sheffield Hallam colleagues are actively contributing to making Sheffield a more sustainable food place.

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent outputs and activities from our clusters and members;
  • resources and calls for papers (including a call for research participants for a study of food addiction);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the mid-May 2024 edition of What’s Cooking. Our newsletter has moved to alternate mid-months: the deadline for submissions (research news and updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) to Google Form by Monday 13 May.

Cheers,
The SHUFood Team!

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Cluster Updates

Jenny Paxman (RNutr Food) has been been awarded a prestigious Association for Nutrition (AfN) Fellowship, joining a limited number of leading Registered Nutritionists to have been conferred the title. AfN fellows are recognised for their high standards of professional leadership and significant and sustained contribution to the advancement of nutrition regulation, practice, research or education at a national or international level.  Applications for fellowship are rigorously a peer reviewed and must be supported by both Committee and Council. Jenny is Subject Group Leader for Food and Nutrition, a core member of the SHUFood leadership team, abnd SHUFood SHARe researcher. We’re super proud of her!

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Jenny Paxman recently participated in a Nutrition Society Roundtable: Differentiating fungi-derived proteins – is there a role for a fungal protein category within food based dietary guidelines (FBDG) and how is this best communicated? This member-led meeting kicked off with presentations from experts in the field. Dr Emma Derbyshire from Nutritional Insight explored ‘Fungi vs plants: taxonomy, nutritional value, role in the diet and representation in food-based dietary guidelines around the world’ highlighting the different approaches taken globally.  Prof. Benjamin Wall (University of Exeter) went on to share some of the trials evidence exploring effects on muscle anabolism, cardio metabolic health and the microbiome.  The final presentation prior to discussion was from Prof. Paul Thomas (University of Stirling) who presented insights into the sustainability credentials of fungi-derived proteins. The live-streamed presentations and subsequent debate sought to answer seven key questions and lively discussion followed.  Look out for the published summary paper in due course.

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Lucie Nield, Jordan Beaumont, Rachel Rundle, Simon Bowles, Helen Martin, Claire Wall, Jo Pearce and David Harness have received a NIHR Application Development Award to run a study exploring the scale and scope of dark kitchens (food outlets with no customer-facing storefront who sell food exclusively through online platforms for delivery only) across the north of England. The project will work with consumers, local authorities and dark kitchen businesses to explore perceptions of “dark kitchens” and current approaches to identifying and regulating these businesses.

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Dr Jordan Beaumont was invited to give a guest lecture to psychology students and academics at Christ University (India). The lecture – Eating Behaviour: From “Normal” to Disordered Eating – provided an overview of Jordan’s research, and served as an opportunity to overview some of the collaborative work between Sheffield Hallam and Christ University.

Jennifer Smith Maguire will be participating in the ‘Workshop on Leisure & Consumption of Economic Elites’ in late March: a fully funded, closed workshop of 13 invited papers taking place at the University of Amsterdam. Jen’s workshop contribution examines the role of elite cultural intermediaries in shaping elite taste preferences and practices, and their utility as an empirical entry point for studying elite consumption dispositions. The working paper analyses media representations of biodynamic and natural wine over a twenty-year timespan, highlighting how these forms of ‘weird wine’ become conventional yet retain their insecure status as objects of legitimate, discerning consumption. Jen’s also part of a special session on ‘Consumer Culture Insights into Brands and their Heritage’ at the CCT 2024 conference, where she’ll be presenting a paper examining natural wines and the aesthetics of provenance.

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Publications:

Flint, M., Leroy, F., Bowles, S., Lynn, A. & Paxman, J. (2024). The acceptability and sensory attributes of plant-based burger products under open and closed label conditions [abstract only]. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 82 (OCE5), E278-E278. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0029665123003774

Fowler-Davis, S., Benkowitz, C., Nield, L. & Dayson, C. (2024). Green Spaces and the Impact on Cognitive Frailty; a scoping review. Frontiers in Public Health, 11:1278542. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1278542

Hawkins, A., & Rundle, R. (2024). School Food Hero and the Battle of the Food Foe: a story of public health policy, power imbalance and potential. Social Science and Medicine, 342. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116520

Lynn, A., Shaw, C., Sorsby, A., Ashworth, P., Hanif, F., Williams, C., & Ranchordas, M. (2024). Caffeine gum improves 5 km running performance in recreational runners completing parkrun events. European Journal of Nutrition. http://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-024-03349-3

Nield, L. (2024). “I Prefer Eating Less Than Eating Healthy”: Drivers of Food Choice in a Sample of Muslim Adolescents. Adolescents, 4 (1), 41-61. https://doi.org/10.3390/adolescents4010004

Nield, L., Thelwell, M., Chan, A., Choppin, S. & Marshall, S. (2024). Patient perceptions of three-dimensional (3D) surface imaging technology and traditional methods used to assess anthropometry. Obesity Pillars, 100100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obpill.2024.100100

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Resources and Calls for Papers

SHUFood Research Chats are monthly online meetings that offer a space to talk all things research: showcase work, provide updates, discuss plans, explore collaborations… You can bring along updates to share, or just come along to see what everyone else is up to—all are welcome. Please email Dr Jordan Beaumont (j.beaumont@shu.ac.uk) for more information and a calendar invite. The next SHUFood chat will be Wednesday 10 April (15:30 to 16:30).

 

Food Addiction Research: Participants Needed!
We’re looking to understand how people feel about ‘food addiction.’ The term ‘food addiction’ is widely used in popular culture including on social media. We would like to better understand how different people perceive ‘food addiction’ (no matter what viewpoint they have). As much of the current research under-represents certain groups or communities, we would like to hear from any adult (over 18 years), irrespective of demographic characteristics or how you identify. We believe that having a clear understanding about how people feel about ‘food addiction’ (no matter what viewpoint they have), will help improve future research in this area that could have an impact on weight management strategies and services. Please complete the very short (10-15 min) survey via: https://lnkd.in/eKamgJCc  Please share amongst your networks – we hope to reach as many people as possible and represent as diverse a range of individuals as we can.

Have you presented a SHUFood-relevant academic poster recently? Share it again!
All SHUFood researchers from any career stage are invited to share an existing research poster as part of the SHUFood Annual Discourse research showcase (24 April). Please send e-posters to j.r.paxman@shu.ac.uk or, if you have a physical copy of your poster, please email so we can arrange to collect this from you in the week before the event. We are trying to avoid waste by printing twice. We are interested in:

  • Food and drink storytelling, discourse, and ritual
  • Urban/regional food/ drink development (e.g., via wine and food tourism)
  • Inequalities, social justice, and sustainability of food/ drink
  • Institutional food settings (e.g., school lunches)
  • Attitudes towards food waste
  • Cost and management of food waste
  • Social, political, and economic impacts of overconsumption and food waste
  • Appetite regulation and modulation
  • Eating behaviour
  • Hedonics, food and feeding
  • Obesity and weight management
  • Sensory analysis

We aim to showcase as many posters as possible but can’t guarantee we can share them all.

Identities and Diversity Research Cluster: Seminar Series call – extended deadline (31 March)
We are pleased to share a call for papers for a new online seminar series of the Identities & Diversity cluster of the Drinking Studies Network, which will start mid-2024. The cluster focuses on alcohol’s relationship to the formation, performance, representation and regulation of different identities in historical, contemporary and cross-cultural settings. If you are interested in presenting in the seminar series, please email Samantha Wilkinson Samantha.wilkinson@mmu.ac.uk and Deborah Toner dt151@le.ac.uk by 31 March with your name and affiliation, presentation title, and a brief summary of your presentation (up to 200 words). The aim is to run an online seminar every three months, with two or three presenters in each panel, commencing in May/June 2024. We envisage the seminars running for 60 to 90 minutes: 20 minutes presentation time for each presenter, and 10 minutes Q&A for each presenter – though this is very flexible, and we welcome suggestions for alternative format from presenters. Please specify in your submission if you are proposing a different format. You can find out more about the cluster here: Identities and Diversity – Drinking Studies Network (wordpress.com).

Public House 2030: Will pubs still be here at the end of the decade? (register by 19 April)
‘Public House 2030’ is a one-day workshop aimed at examining the future of UK pubs. Hosted by Newcastle Business School at Northumbria University Newcastle in collaboration with the Beeronomics Society, and supported by Campaign for Pubs, the event will bring together people from the sector to discuss the changes affecting pubs, the different business models in the industry, and the impact of their decline of local economies and communities. Chaired by Professor Ignazio Cabras, head of accounting and financial management at Northumbria University Newcastle, the workshop features notable speakers including Grahame Morris MP, Dr. Liz Hind, Greg Mulholland, Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read, and more, addressing threats and exploring solutions for a sustainable future. Free to attend on a first-come, first-served basis. Register now by emailing Kevin Fletcher at kevin.fletcher@northumbria.ac.uk by the 19th April 2024. 

Journal of Marketing Management Special Issue- *CFP* (deadline 16 September)
Nadine Waehning, Victoria Wells and Robert Bowen are putting together a special issue entitled: ‘Perspectives on drinking, manufacture and drinking spaces and places.’ Papers are welcomed from across a range of disciplines related to markets, consumers, marketing etc. The deadline for submissions is 16th September 2024. The CFP and further information can be found at: https://www.jmmnews.com/perspectives-on-drinking/.

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

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be mid-May. Please send content (research updates, calls for expression of interest, relevant calls for papers/conference/event announcements) by Monday 13 May via this Google Form. 

SHUFood 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 X (OK fine, we’ll call it that): @SHUFood. You can also subscribe to the blog and/or join our Jisc email list: see information on the very bottom of each SHUFood blog page.

 

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Filed under appetite, eating behaviour, food practices, food waste, plant-based foods, SHARe Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research, SHUFood, Uncategorized, What's Cooking?, wine

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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Filed under appetite, CHEFS, eating behaviour, food practices, food waste, research, SHARe Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research, sustainability, SWEFS Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society, What's Cooking?, wine

English and Welsh Wine Symposium, March 2023

A screenshot of the event programme

Many thanks to all who could join us on 14 March 2023, for the English and Welsh Wine Symposium, hosted by the CHEFS research cluster and the Department of Service Sector Management, Sheffield Business School.

A photo of the event, with tasting mats, wine notes and folded programmes on the tables

The half day event explored the current context and future directions of the English and Welsh wine industry, with keynotes, a tutored tasting of English and Welsh wines, and a panel discussion featuring a cross-section of industry perspectives. 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.

A photo of Simon Thorpe delivering his keynoteA screenshot of Simon Thorpe's first slide

The afternoon’s first keynote was delivered by Mr Simon Thorpe: ‘WineGB and its role supporting an emerging wine region.’ Simon is a Master of Wine, past trustee of the WSET, and current CEO of WineGB, the industry body for the wine production sector in Great Britain. Simon’s presentation provided a ‘state of the nation’ overview of wine production in the UK, and reviewed the challenges and opportunities for supporting an industry in its journey to maturity. Simon effusively captured the optimism of the event: “We are brilliantly set up: brilliant product, enormous market, brilliant consumers. We are amazingly well set up to be successful.”

A photo of Steve Charters delivering his keynoteA screenshot of Steve's first slide

Professor Steve Charters delivered the second keynote: ‘PDOs and Terroir: The Complexities of Wine and Place.‘ A Master of Wine, Steve is Professor of Marketing at Burgundy School of Wine and Spirits Business, and Adjunct Professor at Adelaide Business School. Steve’s talk explored the historical roots of PDOs (Protected Designations of Origin), which were a matter more of struggles between grape growers and wine merchants and the pursuit of economic power, than mystical notions of soil and place. Steve also shared preliminary findings from the UK portion of a transnational study of consumer perceptions of terroir, underlining that the sort of PDO that might best serve English and Welsh wine producers was far from straightforward.

A photo of Simon Thorpe leading the wine tasting, with an image of different coloured wines in six tasting glassesA photo of the room, with participants tasting the wines

Following lively question and answer sessions for each keynote, and a brief coffee break, the event resumed with a tutored tasting of a selection of wines, generously selected and donated by WineGB. Led by Simon Thorpe, the tasting took participants through six wines showcasing the diversity of English and Welsh wine production:
Penn Croft Bacchus 2021
Yotes Court Loose Rein 2021
White Castle Siegerrebe 2021
Sharpham Dart Valley Reserve 2020
Halfpenny Green Chardonnay 2019
Thorrington Mill Pinot Noir Rosé 2021

We had fantastic engagement from participants in the discussion of the wines, which ranged from anecdotes about the challenges of growing different varieties, to the challenges of selling little known varieties (Bacchus, Siergerrebe, Madeleine Angevine) to consumers, to the question of whether colour should matter when it comes to rosé.

A photo of the panel, with Will Harper, Barry Starmore, Kieron Atkinson and Greg Dunn
The final major portion of the Symposium was devoted to a panel discussion, chaired by Dr Greg Dunn, head of the wine division at Plumpton College. Panellists drew on their varied industry perspectives to reflect on the challenges and opportunities for the future of English and Welsh wine. Mr Will Harper (a Sheffield Hallam alum!) drew on his experience in the hospitality industry and role as General Manager at Ivy Asia to offer excellent insights as to where small scale wines are best served (and not best served) in the spectrum of restaurant businesses. Mr Barry Starmore reflected on how much had changed over his long involvement in wine retail in terms of consumer interests and tastes, and highlighted the unique capacity of independent retailers to hand sell small scale wines and tell their stories. Finally, Mr Kieron Atkinson drew on his wide and varied experience as a winemaker at Renishaw Hall and Darley Abbey, alongside several other wine industry roles, to reflect on the challenges of creating financially sustainable wineries that take best advantage of their place.

A photo of event co-organisers John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire at the networking event The Symposium concluded with a networking event, the centrepiece of which was a selection of English sparkling wines donated by WineGB. Guests were treated to:
Dunesforde Queen of the North
Raimes Blanc de Noirs
Harrow & Hope Brut Rosé
Giffords Hall Classic Cuvée
Smith & Evans
Breaky Bottom Grace Nicols

Judging by the volume of conversations in the room, there was plenty of appetite for further discussion and agreement that the future of English and Welsh wines looks bright indeed.

Thanks in particular to the Department of Service Sector Management, Sheffield Business School, and to Mrs Julia Trustram Eve and WineGB, for the fantastic support that made the event possible.

Until next time!

 

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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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What’s Cooking, January 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?

 

First and foremost, happy new year! It seems an opportune moment to re-introduce the cluster, which spans three broad areas:

  • Culture, Health, Environment, Food and Society (CHEFS) focuses on the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink markets and consumption, and is led by Jennifer Smith Maguire;
  • Surplus Waste and Excess Food in Society (SWEFS) focuses on drivers and potential interventions to address food waste, and is led by Pallavi Singh;
  • Sheffield Hallam Appetite Research (SHARe) focuses on appetite regulation and eating behaviour, and is co-led by Jenny Paxmanand Jordan Beaumont.

Please get in touch if you’d like to get involved, and email Jen (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) if you’d like details added (or refreshed) on our Members Page.

Research England have recently launched round 2 of the Expanding Excellence in England (E3) fund. The E3 fund is focused on the strategic and sustainable expansion of small, excellent research units that push the frontiers of human knowledge and deliver transformative impacts and enhancing, and enhance the skills base and diversify talent in any given disciplines. E3 funds are thus typically directed at staff recruitment (staff contracts and developing a talent pipeline), activities related to conducting research and creating a conducive research environment, and capital investment. We’d like to explore a potential CHEFS/SWEFS/SHARe bid, with our truly inter-disciplinary focus on food and society as the USP. The internal SHU deadline for expressions of interest is 20 January. If you’d like to be involved in this discussion, please let Jen know by Monday 9 January (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk) so that you are included in the planning meeting (date/time TBC).

Mark your calendars for the following upcoming CHEFS events:

  • 26 January, 5.30-8pm, on campus: Barbara Bray MBE will deliver a BTE Talk (for the College of Business, Technology and Engineering) on ‘Consolidating the population, planet and people: Food industry solutions.’ Registration and details here.
  • 9 February, 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). Titles and abstracts to come; for now, you can find details and joining link here, or email me (smith1@shu.ac.uk) for an Outlook invite.
  • 8 March, 1-3pm, on campus: SHARe is hosting a ‘Complete and Finish’ writing event. Email event organizer Jenny Paxman if you have questions/would like to receive an Outlook invite.
  • 14 March, 1.15-5.30pm, on campus (followed by refreshments and networking, 5.30-6.30): CHEFS is hosting theEnglish and Welsh Wine Symposium, a half-day event that explores the current context and future directions of the English and Welsh wine industry, with keynotes from Simon Thorpe MW, CEO of WineGB, and Professor Steve Charters MW, as well as a tutored tasting of English and Welsh wines, and a panel discussion featuring a cross-section of industry perspectives. More information and the Eventbrite registration link available here.  Any questions, please email event lead organiser, John Dunning (dunning@shu.ac.uk).

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (a recap of 2022 activities; a novel online wine tasting; a new publication on wine value claims);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including a call for involvement in one of five working groups that ShefFood is organising, as part of their Bronze to Silver Award bid for Sustainable food places);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the March 2023 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

A quick recap of our 2022 CHEFS activities, which included:

  • 11 online research presentations, on craft, authenticity, beer, pubs, children, food, storytelling…and more! (recordings available here, including our final session of 2022 featuring Maria Touri’s research on digital storytelling and bridging the food producer/consumer gap);
  • 5 research roundtables;
  • 4 new GTA/PhD students: Megan, Ufuoma, Nikita, and Gareth (intros to their research here and here);
  • 3 research blog posts (about plant-based foodsSouth African wine farmworkers, and the PhD by Publication route);
  • a new, recurring PhD blog from Gareth Roberts, as he develops his PhD on food events, and sustainability.

photo of the wine tasting, with participants (visible in the Sheffield Hallam classroom and on the screen, attending from Puerto Rico via Zoom), raising their glasses John Dunning and David Graham hosted a novel wine tasting in November, with Nanette López and Zoe Santiago-Font of UAGM (Universidad Ana G. Méndez) and students in Puerto Rico. This was a live, simultaneous tutored wine tasting of 6 wines, with the same wines sourced both in Puerto Rico and in Sheffield. They are gearing up for future tastings—rum, perhaps!

A new publication from Jennifer Smith Maguire and Nikita-Marie Bridgeman, with co-authors Sharron Marco-Thyse (Centre for Rural Legal Studies, South Africa) and Charles Erasmus (Wine Industry Value Chain Round Table, South Africa): Wine farmworkers, provenance stories and ethical value claims, in the Journal of Wine Research, extends past research on ethical value claims in two ways. First, research often centres on certifications as mechanisms of ethical claims-making; in contrast, we focus on provenance stories as devices of wine brand differentiation and ethical value creation. Second, while value claims are broadly understood as co-creative outcomes involving producers, intermediaries, and consumers, we focus on manual farmworkers, who are largely absent, as story subjects and storytellers, in agri-food provenance stories and value claims. Focusing on the South African wine industry, the article analyses a comparative sample of South African, French, Italian and Australian winery websites, identifying provenance as the dominant frame for ethical value claims, family as a primary anchor for provenance, and South Africa’s distinctive prevalence of representations of farmworkers in winery communications. The article then reports on data from two ‘storytelling workshops’ with Cape Wineland farmworkers, which generated resonant themes – community and familiness; expertise and pride – that align with extant winery brand stories, and dominant market expectations and credence cues, suggesting potential for farmworkers to contribute to and be more securely included and recognized within premium wine value chains.

Finally: CHEFS is delighted to welcome Samantha McCormick, our latest food-focused GTA to Sheffield Business School! Sam is a SHU grad (BSc Hons Nutrition, Diet & Lifestyle) and will be starting her PhD journey in February; watch this space for an introduction in the next edition of What’s Cooking.

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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. 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>.

Call for papers: Third International Conference on Food and Communication. Deadline 15 February.
The third conference on Food and Communication will be held in Örebro, Sweden, 13 – 15th September 2023, with the theme “Communication ‘good’ foods.” By studying topics at the intersection of communication and food, the conference welcomes scientific contributions covering all geographic areas, historical periods, and methods, including, but not limited to food and: health; sustainability; ethics; science; branding/marketing; media; advice and cookbooks; governmental discourse; corporate discourse; professional communication (chefs, restaurants); politics; religion. Full information and abstract submission point available 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 March 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 27 February.

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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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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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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What’s Cooking, March 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?

We had another great instalment of our online research talk series on February 10th, with ‘paired papers’ focused on beer, consumption and authenticity. Nadine Waehning and Victoria Wells (University of York Management School) shared their current research on how beer consumers ‘forage’: in addition to exploring between patch (pub) and within patch (product) consumer choices, they also gave us insights into some neat methods and a York pub tour to boot! Andrey Sgorla (University of Siena) then shared insights from his research into the narrative construction of the Brazilian craft beer market and brewers’ performances of passion and authenticity. A recording of the session is available on our ‘past talks’ webpage.

Our next online research talk is coming up soon! On March 23rd (3.30-5 GMT on Zoom), two of our very own SHU CHEFS members are talking about their research on pubs, alcohol and the pandemic: Joanna Reynolds will give a talk on ‘“Pub-ageddon”! Risk, responsibility and alcohol licensing in England during COVID-19 pandemic,’ providing on analysis of how the media reported restrictions on pubs and bars over the course of 2020, and the shifting discursive framing of problems relating to alcohol consumption and licensing; Pallavi Singh will be sharing insights from qualitative research on ‘Sustainability in the beer and pub industry during the COVID-19 period: An emerging new normal,’ drawing on in-depth interviews with pub and brewery owners, managers, and customers, as well as netnographic and offline observations of pubs’ engagement with customers. 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 new food-focused PhD research from new GTAs in Sheffield Business School, and a call for participants in research on wine consumers);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including upcoming online events (online event on the sociology of wine, with (optional!) tasting; webinar on research on post-hospitalization food), funding deadlines and conference calls);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the May 2022 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers, Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

We are pleased to welcome two new GTAs in Sheffield Business School, each with a food focus to their research!

In the Department of Management, Ufuoma Arangebi is working with Dianne Dean and Pallavi Singh on her PhD project, which explores the intergenerational and cross cultural attitudes towards the symbolic nature of food and food waste. Ufuoma’s specialist area is Marketing. She has a BSc in Geography and Regional planning and an MSc in International Business. She is very interested in food consumption, the symbolic and ritualistic nature of preparing and sharing food, particularly within the community.

In the Department of Service Sector Management, Megan Flint is working with Jenny Paxman, Tony Lynn and Simon Bowles on her PhD project which aims to explore the consumer health valuation of plant-based convenience foods versus their actual nutritional profile and satiating potential. Megan’s specialist area is Nutrition and Public Health. She has a BSc in Nutrition and Public Health and an MSc in Nutrition with Public Health Management. She’s particularly interested in consumer engagement with novel plant-based convenience foods, and their health value in comparison to meat-based equivalents.

John Dunning and student researcher Rachel Robinson are currently undertaking data collection on wine gifting and cultural values, for research in collaboration with Jennifer Smith Maguire and Samantha McCormick. They are keen to recruit British and Chinese consumers of varying levels of wine involvement for semi-structured interviews. 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!

Jennifer Smith Maguire is taking part in an online launch event, to mark the publication of the ‘Constructing the Sociology (or Sociologies) of Wine’ special issue of the Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change. (The journal is open access.) All are welcome, so please join us for short talks from the article authors: Friday March 11th, 2.30-4.30 on Zoom. Registration details are below; registered participants will receive the Zoom link when they sign up, along with a list of wine-and-paper pairing recommendations for an informal tasting to close the launch event. Jen is also delighted to share that the co-edited Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture is now available for pre-order, with a 20% discount available until 30th April (code ASM02). The book offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of contemporary research and thinking on how wine fits into the cultural frameworks of production and consumption. Editor royalties have been donated to WaterAid.

Jenny Paxman has been busy with organising the Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2022, to be hosted in Sheffield, 12-15 July. Registration is now open—see the details in the section below; abstract deadline is 17 April.

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Constructing the Sociology (or Sociologies) of Wine, online launch event, 11 March, 14.30—16.30 (GMT)
This event is open to all, and marks the ‘Constructing the Sociology (or Sociologies) of Wine’ special issue of the Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change. Each of the special issue authors will be suggesting a style and/or region of wine to accompany their article; participants are welcome to join in an informal towards the end of the event. (Wines not supplied!) To attend, please register via Eventbrite. Attendees will receive the Zoom link when they sign up, along with a list of wine and paper pairing recommendations.

Sustain Webinar, 16 March (2-3pm)
Home from Hospital and access to food. This event marks the launch of Home from hospital: Ensuring people have access to food at discharge from hospital and beyond. The guide highlights the importance of this issue and presents good practice case studies from around the country. This event will feature a summary of the guide and speakers from some of the case study areas in the report. Register via the Sustain webpage.

EuroSense 2022 Conference: abstract deadline 18 March
EuroSense 2022 the 10th European Conference on Sensory and Consumer Research, theme: ‘A Sense of Earth’. 13-16 September 2022, Turku, Finland. Submission deadline of 18 March 2022 for abstracts for workshops, talks and poster presentations on the following themes: Sensory and Consumer Science for Sustainability and Biodiversity | Sensory, FoodTech & Health | Sensory Food Terroir | Cross Cultural in Sensory and Consumer Research | Citizen Involvement | Multisensory Perception | Food Choice, Sensory Perception and Beyond | Sensometrics. View topic descriptions and submit abstracts here

Brewers’ Research and Education Fund: application deadline 31 March
British Beer & Pub Association, through the Brewers’ Research and Education Fund, invites applications for its research grants. These support scientific research and education that supports the UK brewing industry. Projects must satisfy at least one of the following objectives: promoting brewing education, training and research; researching and educating the public about beer consumption; researching the composition and nutritional value of beer in relation to diet and wellbeing; promoting research related to the environmental and economic sustainability of the brewing sector. Project must have a principal benefit to the brewing industry in the UK. Organisations, institutions and individuals may apply.  Information and application procedure available here.

Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2022: abstract deadline 17 April
We’re excited to announce that registration for the Sheffield-hosted Nutrition Society Summer Meeting 2022 is now open. The four day conference, ‘Food and Nutrition: Pathways to a sustainable future’, 12-15 July, will be an in-person event hosted at Sheffield Hallam University city campus organised by SHU in partnership with The University of Sheffield and Sheffield City Council.  The conference will cover various pathways to a sustainable future in food and nutrition, including:

  • Building of ethical food systems
  • Eroding nutritional inequalities
  • Sustaining an ageing population
  • Navigating dietary trends
  • Understanding mechanisms for health
  • Enabling activity: lessons from exercise science

The call for abstracts is now open for our oral communication and poster streams (deadline 17th April 2022).  Please see more details here: https://www.nutritionsociety.org/events/summer-conference-2022-food-and-nutrition-pathways-sustainable-future

Useful resources: Food Insecurity Tracking data from the Food Foundation

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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 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 Friday 29 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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What’s Cooking, January 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?

We had a great instalment of our Online Research Talks series in November, when Nino Bariola delivered a presentation on ‘Authenticity, legitimacy, and the racial politics of ceviche’ (10/11/21). Drawing on his doctoral research, and expanding beyond it (we can’t wait for the eventual monograph!), Nino discussed the legitimation and strategic ‘Japanization’ of cerviche over time, how Peruvian chefs have used cerviche to manage racialized forms of stigma, and how cerviche features in processes of cultural wealth generation. The recording of the talk is available on our Online Research Talks page, and is a fantastic resource if you’re teaching or writing on issues of food, national identity, culture, distinction, authenticity and more.

Two further online research talk sessions coming up, both focused on beer:

  • Thursday 10 February, 3-4.30 on Zoom: ‘Craft Beer, Agility and Authenticity’ with presentations from Nadine Waehning (University of York Management School) and Andrey Sgorla (University of Siena). Titles and Abstracts to be confirmed.
  • Week of 21 March (date/time to be confirmed) on Zoom: ‘Pubs, Alcohol and the Pandemic’ with presentations from Joanna Reynolds (Sheffield Hallam University) and Pallavi Singh (Sheffield Hallam University). Titles and Abstracts to be confirmed.

Full details are available on our Online Research Talks page.

We’ve also recently sent out the next round of invites for upcoming CHEFS monthly virtual research roundtables in January and May via the CHEFS JISC email list. Research 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. Thanks in advance to Jenny Paxman for hosting:

  • Wednesday 12 January, 3-4pm
  • Wednesday 4 May, 3-4pm

Please feel free to forward the invites to colleagues/PG students who might be interested in joining us. (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 new article on wine, and new research in collaboration with SHU student researchers);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including a call for session proposals on food geographies, and a new food poverty report);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the March 2022 edition of What’s Cooking.

Cheers,
Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Jennifer Smith Maguire wrapped up the co-edited Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture (now available for pre-order): a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of contemporary research and thinking on how wine fits into the cultural frameworks of production and consumption. Jen’s chapter in the Handbook, ‘Sociology, wine and culture,’ reviews how sociology helps with making sense of wine and culture, in terms of how wine and the ‘doing’ of wine are contingent outcomes of the social actions of multiple actors and organisations; how the cultural production and consumption of wine are shaped by discourses of legitimacy and processes of legitimation; and how taste (of and for) wine is bound up with culture. In December 2021, Jen also published a new article ‘Towards a sociology from wine and vina aperta’ in the Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change (open access, i.e. freely available to all). The article outlines a process sociological approach to conceptualizing wine as vina aperta: a multifarious, multifaceted, processual ‘thing’ that is constituted through intended and unintended outcomes of humans’ interdependent relations with the world, others, and themselves. The chapter and article are first steps in pulling together a decade’s worth of wine research into a monograph: the focus for Jen’s January-May 2022 sabbatical.

John Dunning successfully passed the Spanish Wine Scholar (SWS) examination in December. Congratulations to John!

John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire were successful in their bid for Department of Service Sector Management fieldwork funding, to build on their previous research on wine gifting and cultural consumption. They’ll be working with two Sheffield Hallam student researchers (current MSc International Hospitality and Tourism Management student Rachel Robinson, and BSc Nutrition, Diet and Lifestyle graduate Samantha McCormick) to expand their existing sample of interviews with Chinese expat consumers, and generate a comparative data set via interviews with British consumers. They’ll be recruiting participants of varying levels of wine involvement for semi-structured interviews: if you’d like to be involved, please let Jen know (j.smith1@shu.ac.uk)!

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Resources/call for papers/conference announcements

Call for session proposals for the Food Geographies Research Group sessions at the 2022 RGS-IBG conference. Deadline 14 January 2022.

The Food Geographies Research Group (FGRG) invites Session Proposals for the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2022 (to take place at Newcastle University, from Tuesday 30 August to Friday 2 September 2022, with a strong in-person element (COVID-19 restrictions permitting), and with hybrid and online ways to participate.  Further details of the conference arrangements are given on the RGS website).

FGRG encourages and welcomes interesting Session Proposals that advance the sub-discipline, but priority will be given to sessions that speak directly to the conference theme: ‘Food Geographies of Recovery.’ The Group particularly welcomes sessions from ECRs or PhD students exploring areas within the food geographies field. We encourage and support interesting connections and engagements with other RGS-IBG research groups, where appropriate. Sessions may take the form of presented papers, panels, practitioner forums, discussions or workshops. Innovative sessions and formats are encouraged.  Proposals should include: (i) Title of session; (ii) Name of Co-sponsoring groups, if applicable; (iii) Name and Contact Details for Session Convenors; (iv) Abstract, outlining scope of session  – 200 words max; (v) Number of session timeslots that are sought; (vi) Indication of preferred organisation of session, e.g. 4 x 20min presentation, plus 20min discussion or 5 x 15min presentation, with 5min question for each, we welcome creative formats. Sessions last 1 hour 40 mins; (vii) whether you envisage an online, in-person or hybrid format. The deadline for proposals for FGRG sponsored sessions is Friday 14th January 2022. Proposals for, or questions about, FGRG sponsored sessions should be sent to Mark Stein, Food Geographies Research Group Conference Officer (markstein2010@live.co.uk ).

 

Empowering local action on Food Poverty: Key lessons from Food Power: new report that identifies 10 key lessons on developing food poverty alliances and action plans, with national recommendations for government and funders to lead to the real change needed to ensure everyone is able to access healthy, affordable, sustainable food. Download the full report and find more resources, including guidance for local authorities, case studies and webinars on the Food Power website.

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

The next edition of What’s Cooking will be March 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 Monday 28 February.

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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What’s Cooking, September 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?

Something new! For the coming academic year, we’ll be hosting a series of CHEFS online research talks. Thanks to the advantages of Zoom, we have the chance to virtually bring in speakers to share their research on the socio-cultural dimensions of food and drink from around the world. Our first talk is by Warwick Frost and Jennifer Frost, from La Trobe University. On October 15th, 10am (UK time!), they’ll be joining us from Australia to talk about the gastronomic transformation of Melbourne. Details of the event with Zoom link are available on the CHEFS Online Research Talks Page.

Food, laneways and public art: The gastronomic transformation of Melbourne
Dr Warwick Frost & Dr Jennifer Frost, La Trobe University
Friday 15 October, 10am, on Zoom
Abstract: In the 1980s, Melbourne was increasingly characterised as a ‘doughnut city’ in which night-time activities had deserted the Central Business District. A number of strategic policy reforms paralleling organic developments in public street art led to the rise of a strong cafe culture which reinvigorated the city and which has become central to the city’s destination marketing campaigns. Melbourne’s cafe culture was particularly characterised by small independent operators presenting themselves as cutting edge and in tune with the latest developments in artistic culture and environmental sustainability. This presentation outlines these changes, the challenges they have brought and explores attempts by other cities to replicate them.

If you’d like to recommend a future speaker, or self-nominate to deliver a talk, please let me know.

After a summer break, our monthly 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:

  • Wednesday 15 September, 3-4pm (meeting invite circulated previously)
  • Wednesday 13 October, 4-5pm
  • Wednesday 17 November, 2-3pm

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.

Be sure to check out our most recent blog post: Punita Chowbey reflects on her research with British South Asian mothers, and the complex relationship between healthy eating and time.

Below, we have:

  • updates on recent CHEFS members’ activities (findings report and webinar recording from an exploratory project on digital marketing, storytelling, and the regional wineries of the UK’s Midlands and North);
  • resources/calls for papers/conference announcements (including the ‘Digital Innovation and Wine’ CHEFS symposium on 13 September, and a BSA event on the lived experience of alcohol in social science research and teaching on 15 September);
  • the usual call for contributions and content for the November 2021 edition of What’s Cooking.

Lastly, some sad news to share: Deborah Harrop, one of the original forces behind the creation of CHEFS, passed away in August after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Deb’s food-related research interests focused on older people, care homes, and defining health and wellbeing outcomes; her humour, insight and capacity to bring people together were also key ingredients in the initial CHEFS launch events. Deb’s family has suggested donations in her memory to Cats Protection or the cattery that she used to volunteer at: Dove Cat Rescue Sanctuary. They are also planning a virtual book of condolences. Deb will be much missed.

Jen

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Recent CHEFS Activities

Jennifer Smith Maguire and John Dunning, in collaboration with Sheffield Hallam food and nutrition student researchers Samantha McCormick and Piotr Hipsz, recently wrapped up an exploratory project looking at digital marketing, storytelling and regional identity in relation to the wineries of the Midlands and North of the UK. Information about the project, ‘Innovation Opportunities and Digital Storytelling: An Exploratory Study of the Midlands and North Wine Region’ can be found on the project page, including links to download the findings report and to access a recording of the June 14 webinar that presented some of the findings to regional wine sector stakeholders.

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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 forms 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 9th September (extended deadline). 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.

Thinking critically about lived experience of alcohol in social science research and teaching’, A BSA Alcohol Studies Group Workshop – Wednesday 15th September 2021 (9.45am-1pm BST)

This half-day online workshop will be structured around the broad theme of ‘lived experience’ of alcohol, in social science research and teaching. To view the presentation abstracts and to book please see the information online. The event is free for BSA members and £10 for non-members. Please get in touch with the convenors claire.markham@ntu.ac.uk or kat.jackson@newcastle.ac.uk if you are not a BSA member and would like to enquire about applying for a subsidised place, or if you would like more information about the workshop.

New publication: Ian Taplin. 2021. The Napa Valley Wine Industry: The Organization of Excellence. Cambridge Scholars.

25% discount available for orders online www.cambridgescholars.com Discount code: PROMO25

This book examines how Napa became a pre-eminent site for the production of great and sometimes iconic wines in a short space of time. Unlike its Old World counterparts whose development took place over centuries, Napa’s inception didn’t start until the beginning of the 19th century, and even then struggled to identify appropriate grape varietals and find a market for such wine, only to be frustrated when Prohibition occurred in the early 20th century and practically shut down the industry. It was in the 1960s that winegrowing would re-emerge on a scale and quality that began to be noticed by informed critics and neophyte consumers. In the following decades, critical information sharing networks of owners and winemakers emerged, facilitating a collective organization learning that fostered a commitment to quality and consistency that would cement Napa’s reputation. During these decades, technical skills were embraced, institutional support harnessed, and demand for premium wine in America grew. This book is a story about this evolving wine market, about how key individuals were able to shape its organization and build a brand that would increasingly be identified as amongst the best in the world. It starts with an early discussion of what constitutes quality and how wine has been evaluated over the centuries, and ends by exploring Napa’s apotheosis and the current critical issues facing the industry in that area.

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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 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 Friday 29 October.

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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