Press Releases

University of Reading at the Berkshire Show – a leader in the fields of agriculture and food science – University of Reading

Release Date : 22 September 2009

The University of Reading was delighted to welcome more than 3000 visitors to its exhibition at last week's Royal County of Berkshire Show, helping its organisers, the Newbury and District Agricultural Society, to celebrate their centenary.

To mark this anniversary the University's exhibit, entitled 100 years of Food and Farming, showcased the University's expertise, teaching, heritage and research in the world of agriculture and foodbiosciences. Highlights of the exhibition included a 1920s steam engine, the opportunity to learn the science behind ice-cream production and a chance to blend your own 'food for thought' beverage with our cycle powered smoothie maker!

University experts were on hand to explain Reading research which has shown that foods such as blueberries can reverse age-related decline in memory, and may have implications for the treatment of ageing-associated diseases, such as Alzheimer's Disease.

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL), which is owned and managed by the University organised for its former artist in residence Julie Roberts to be at the show. She ran fun family craft workshops on the stand and helped children to make colourful tissue suncatchers.

The Museum also be launched its final online exhibition from its digitisation project of over 13,000 images of British food, farming and the countryside. The latest images all come from the Farmer's Weekly Collection and represent subjects such as landscape, women in agriculture, education and training, and machinery.

"There was something for everyone at our exhibit," said Fiona Blair, Director of Events at the University of Reading. "While enjoying tasty shakes and taking part in fun workshops, the public found out about some of the fantastic work that takes place at Reading, which is consistently ranked as one of the top 200 Universities in the world. The public also discovered MERL's fascinating historical farming treasures, and learnt about Reading's leading teaching programmes and cutting-edge research."

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For all media enquiries please contact James Barr, University of Reading Press Officer on 0118 378 7115 or by email on j.w.barr@reading.ac.uk