What this is all about

This blog is a sort of research journal, a stream of consciousness babble based on what I am learning and researching during my PhD. I am based in Geography at the University of Sheffield, and my PhD project is currently called “Spilling the Beans: The concepts of quality and waste in the speciality coffee industry.”

I am one of three PhD students studying wastage in food industries; in turn we are all part of a much bigger project funded by the ESRC called The Waste of the World This programme focuses on reexamining what we think of as ‘waste’ and the social connotations of waste in different global industries, including steel, nuclear, ship-breaking and textile industries. My own project concentrates on what constitutes waste in the coffee industry at different points in the commodity chain, with the emphasis on coffee production rather than consumption. I am also interested in the links between quality and waste, ie: is producing high quality coffee inherently more wasteful? I would like to study every stage between growing coffee on plantations in Costa Rica to making the perfect latte in a coffee shop in the UK, so the following blog posts can take any topic even vaguely relating to these ideas! However, this is just a personal blog, the posts here are not actually part of my project itself and should not be read as such.

Finally, it may look like I’ve suddenly written a novel in June, but all entries prior to June 08 have been previously publish on other blogs and websites, and so they are all a bit all over the place and certainly not in the order they were written in. Never mind.

All feedback is much appreciated!

For more info:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/geography/students/pg/annabeltownsend.html