Most people who know me, I think will agree that I am generally a ‘cup half full’ person. But I must admit that at the time of writing this column, it is difficult to ensure that the ‘virtual’ meniscus in the glass does not sink too far!

I am sure many of you will be sharing my concerns that the next few months have hurdles to negotiate that by themselves would seem challenging enough, but together feel like they could be the perfect storm. The lead up to Christmas and the New Year is for many food and drink businesses the busiest time of the year, a time for all the work of the previous year to come to fruition, be that innovative new products, improved efficiencies and logistics or rewarding hard‐working team members with an end of year bonus. But 2020 sees us not only dealing with the on‐going challenge of the COVID‐19 pandemic (balancing the provision of safe food with the safety of our key worker teams) but also the end of the transition period for EU exit. Deal or no deal, much will change on 1 January 2021 and if nothing else, many will be dealing with a whole raft of new paperwork to keep the supply chain moving.

These two strains on the system will hopefully be something that we work through and emerge stronger from. But for many, the pressures of the economic situation, changes to work practices and personal challenges will have lasting impacts. At this time, whether we are in industry, academia, government, retired etc. let's make sure we go the extra mile to support colleagues in our community.

On the lighter side, I recently had the pleasure of judging the European finals of the Ecotrophelia competition. If you ever needed a life‐affirming experience of how innovative, creative and massively professional the new entrants to our ranks are, then Ecotrophelia would be a good place to start. We were presented with some amazingly detailed and impressive new product proposals and although the UK team was not ultimately a winner on the EU platform, the students demonstrated why they were worthy regional winners and a credit to the University of Nottingham and IFST!

To help keep the optimism up and to toast the splendid performance of our student team, you could do a whole lot worse than raise a glass of English sparkling wine. I understand it has been a record‐breaking year for the industry and let's hope we have some further wins to celebrate over the next few months.

大多数认识我的人，我想都会同意我通常是个“半满杯”人。但是我必须承认，在撰写本专栏文章时，很难确保玻璃中的“虚拟”弯月面不会沉得太深！

我敢肯定，你们中的许多人都会表达我的担忧，即接下来的几个月要进行谈判就很难克服挑战，但是在一起看来它们可能是一场完美的风暴。圣诞节和新年的到来是许多食品和饮料企业一年中最繁忙的时间，也是上一年所有工作都得以实现的时间，无论是创新的新产品，提高的效率和物流效率还是回报。勤奋的团队成员，并获得年终奖金。但是到2020年，我们不仅要应对COVID-19大流行的持续挑战（在提供安全食品和关键工作人员的安全之间取得平衡），而且还要退出欧盟退出过渡期。达成或不达成协议，在2021年1月1日会有很大变化，如果没有其他事情，

希望这两个对系统的压力将成为我们不断努力并从中变得更强大的东西。但是对于许多人来说，经济形势的压力，工作方式的变化和个人挑战将产生持久的影响。目前，无论我们是在行业，学术界，政府，退休人士中，我们都要确保为支持社区中的同事付出更多的努力。

从较轻松的方面来说，我最近很高兴评判Ecotrophelia比赛的欧洲决赛。如果您需要一生肯定的经历，以了解新晋入我们行列的人员具有创新性，创造性和高度专业性，那么Ecotrophelia将是一个不错的起点。我们收到了一些令人惊讶的详细和令人印象深刻的新产品建议，尽管英国团队最终并没有在欧盟平台上脱颖而出，但学生们展示了为什么他们值得成为地区冠军，并为诺丁汉大学和IFST赢得了荣誉！

为了保持乐观情绪并敬酒我们的学生团队的出色表现，您做的事情可能比举起一杯英国起泡酒还要糟糕得多。我知道这是该行业创纪录的一年，让我们希望在接下来的几个月中能赢得更多的胜利。