by | June 11, 2020 · 1:45 pm

NCMP trends resource

The National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) has released a report on trends in children’s body mass index 2006 to 2007 and 2018 to 2019 accessible here

Included:

  • Analysis of the trends in obesity, excess weight, and severe obesity prevalence (NCMP),
  • Changes over time by age, sex, ethnic group and deprivation quintile

Highlights:

“The findings show that prevalence of obesity and excess weight are showing a downward trend among Reception (aged 4 to 5 years) boys. However, Reception girls and Year 6 (aged 10 to11 years) boys and girls are seeing an upward trend in the prevalence of obesity and excess weight. Prevalence of severe obesity is increasing among Reception girls and Year 6 boys and girls. Inequalities continue to widen in obesity, excess weight, and severe obesity across all age and sex groups in the NCMP.”

We hope you find this useful.

Leave a Comment

Filed under CHEFS

by | June 1, 2020 · 7:32 am

What’s Cooking, June 2020

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

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

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

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

Cheers, Jen

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

Recent CHEFS Activities

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

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

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

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

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

All told a very productive brewing related few weeks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

Leave a Comment

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

by | April 27, 2020 · 3:55 pm

Fuller for longer?

Suzanne Zaremba (Lecturer in Nutrition, Centre for Public Health Nutrition Research, University of Dundee) and Miriam Clegg (Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences, University of Reading) have recently published a thought-provoking article in The Conversation highlighting the paucity of studies linking appetite measures to weight control endpoints and the need for more research in older adults.  This article has also been picked up by The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/health-and-wellbeing/diet-nutrition-satiety-hunger-body-mind-a9453641.html

You may remember Miriam from our launch event.

Leave a Comment

Filed under CHEFS

by | April 1, 2020 · 12:42 pm

What’s Cooking, April 2020

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

In this April 2020 edition:

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

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

Stay well!
Cheers, Jen

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

Recent CHEFS Activities

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Leave a Comment

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

by | March 13, 2020 · 3:38 pm

‘Sustain’ to test the advertising restrictions policy developed by the Mayor of London’s office and Transport for London

The Healthy Weight and Physical Activity Community of Improvement YH will soon be starting work on a project with ‘Sustain’ to test the advertising restrictions policy developed by the Mayor of London’s office and Transport for London.

 

They are seeking an evaluation partner to work with them to assess the impact of providing a regional approach to the reduction of exposure to foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS foods). Although funding has not yet been secured to support the evaluation, PHE would be keen to work with the evaluation partner to identify potential sources of funding.

 

Approximate project timeline:

January funding granted
February initial audit of council policies and contracts to provide baseline information for project.
February/ March identify evaluation partner and secure funding for evaluation
April/ May- CoI meeting for background to project and briefing for how LAs are going to be involved and how to start collecting the evidence
May- September LAs start collecting information eg detailed policies and contract information; photographs to make the case for implementing policy changes
October – Sustain start project implementation work with local authorities

 

Further information

If you would like further information. please contact

 

Nicola Corrigan Health and Wellbeing Programme Manager (Healthy Weight & Physical Activity)
Public Health England. Tel: 0113 8557289 Mob: 07584 336 319. nicola.corrigan@phe.gov.uk

 

Background to the project

The Yorkshire & Humber Association of Directors of Public Health (Y&H ADPH) Network have agreed to support an advocacy project from the Healthy Weight and Physical Activity Community of Improvement (HW&PA CoI).  This provides a regional approach to the reduction of exposure to foods high in fat, salt and sugar (HFSS foods).  It also supports the 7th commitment in the Local Authority Declaration on Healthy Weight (LADHW) commitment to:

‘protect our children from inappropriate marketing by the food and drink industry such as advertising and marketing in close proximity to schools; ‘giveaways’ and promotions within schools; at events on local authority controlled sites’

A high profile restriction on HFSS food advertising has been put in place by Transport for London (TfL) supported by the charity Sustain, who assisted in the development and implementation of the policy with the Mayor of London’s office.

By working with Sustain the Y&H ADPH Network will get the best learning and practice in relation to this emerging area of policy development and implementation.  Sustain would provide bespoke support to the Y&H region to replicate the TfL approach, which would include:

• A workshop with members of PHE’s Yorkshire and the Humber food subgroup to support interest, adoption and implementation across council advertising spaces
• Support to explore or implement an equivalent advertising policy across the Yorkshire and the Humber transport networks
• Support 2 (new) Yorkshire and the Humber councils to adopt an equivalent advertising policy
• End of project progress report to PHE Yorkshire and the Humber
• Short briefing paper on learning/recommendations from programme (public)

Leave a Comment

Filed under CHEFS

by | February 10, 2020 · 5:39 pm

Highly Cited Paper in Journal of Endocrinology for 2019

 

Broom et al’s paper – ‘Acute effect of exercise intensity and duration on acylated ghrelin and hunger in men’ was the Journal of Endocrinology’s highest downloaded non – gold open access paper in 2017. It has now been acknowledged as one of the journals most highly citied in 2019.

Broom’s previous work showed that acute exercise transiently suppresses the orexigenic (appetite stimulating) gut hormone acylated ghrelin, but the extent to which exercise intensity and duration determine this response was not fully understood.

 

The effects of manipulating exercise intensity and duration on acylated ghrelin concentrations and hunger were therefore examined in two experiments.

 

In experiment A, nine healthy males completed three conditions being 1) resting control, 2) moderate-intensity running and 3) vigorous-intensity running.

 

In experiment B, nine healthy males completed three conditions being 1) resting control, 2) 45-min running and 3) 90-min running.

 

In both experiments, participants consumed standardised meals, and acylated ghrelin concentrations and hunger were measured throughout.

 

In experiment A, acylated ghrelin concentrations were lower than resting control in both running conditions and to a greater extent in the vigorous-intensity running condition. In experiment B, acylated ghrelin concentrations were lower than control in both running conditions. Hunger ratings were lower for longer after 90 minutes of running.

 

Exercise intensity and duration are key determinants of the acylated ghrelin response to acute exercise with a clear dose response effect. The higher the intensity and the longer the duration the greater the suppression of hunger and acylated ghrelin.

 

Research in this area is needed to identify effective doses of exercise to encourage weight loss and maintenance.

 

This work was in collaboration with academics from Loughborough University. We have recently submitted a paper examining swimming as a mode of physical activity which anecdotally increases hunger. Findings to follow once published.

Leave a Comment

Filed under CHEFS

by | January 31, 2020 · 12:19 pm

What’s cooking, February 2020

What’s Cooking, February 2020

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

Recent additions to the research blog:

Interested in writing a blog? Please let me know!

In this February 2020 edition:

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

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

Recent CHEFS Activities

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Call For Papers/Conference and Event Announcements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Topics include, but are not limited to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Leave a Comment

Filed under Uncategorized, What's Cooking?

by | November 29, 2019 · 12:01 pm

The Sparkling Symposium, 28 November 2019

photo of symposium programme

Photo credit: Judith Boyle

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

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

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

John Dunning and Jennifer Smith Maguire open the symposium

Photo credit: James Ellerby

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

Marion Demossier delivering keynote Marion Demossier delivering keynote

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

Rebecca Gibb delivering keynote Rebecca Gibb delivering keynote

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

Jennifer Smith Maguire delivering presentation

Photo credit: Helenka Brown

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

4 tasting glasses

Photo credit: Emma Martin

John Dunning and Rebecca Gibb leading the tasting

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

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

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

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

 

Leave a Comment

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

by | November 20, 2019 · 9:09 am

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

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

2019　ITAMI International Jewellery Exhibition Grand Prix

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

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

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

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

The Museum of Arts and Crafts ITAMI

Rachael Colley accepting the award

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

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

 

 

 

Leave a Comment

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

by | November 15, 2019 · 9:21 am

Call for abstracts for the Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture

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

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

Routledge Handbook of Wine and Culture Contributor Briefing

Key dates and details:

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

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

Jen

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under alcohol, research, wine