Sustainability in the beer and pub industry during the COVID-19 period: An emerging new normal.

The COVID-19 pandemic created significant challenges for the British pub industry, due to the uncertain conditions caused by the virus, changes in consumption patterns and government measures. Studies recommend that organisations adopt innovative and flexible business models to generate added value for customers and other stakeholders as a survival and growth strategy. However, such measures require business ecosystems which encourage co-creative engagement. This qualitative study extends the concept of value co-creation beyond its current boundary as a customer-driven experiential paradigm, reconceptualising it as a driver for societal benefits. Over the period March - December 2020, we carried out in-depth interviews with pub and brewery owners, managers, and customers, combined with netnographic and offline observations of pubs' engagement with customers. We uncovered three stages of strategies and innovation during this period, which we term 'survive', 'secure', and 'sustain'. We demonstrate how multiple stakeholders benefit from the innovations of pubs and breweries negotiating each stage, advancing current scholarship on sustainable value co-creation.

Rescue of Infectious Sindbis Virus by Yeast Spheroplast-Mammalian Cell Fusion.

Sindbis virus (SINV), a positive-sense single stranded RNA virus that causes mild symptoms in humans, is transmitted by mosquito bites. SINV reverse genetics have many implications, not only in understanding alphavirus transmission, replication cycle, and virus-host interactions, but also in biotechnology and biomedical applications. The rescue of SINV infectious particles is usually achieved by transfecting susceptible cells (BHK-21) with SINV-infectious mRNA genomes generated from cDNA constructed via in vitro translation (IVT). That procedure is time consuming, costly, and relies heavily on reagent quality. Here, we constructed a novel infectious SINV cDNA construct that expresses its genomic RNA in yeast cells controlled by galactose induction. Using spheroplasts made from this yeast, we established a robust polyethylene glycol-mediated yeast: BHK-21 fusion protocol to rescue infectious SINV particles. Our approach is timesaving and utilizes common lab reagents for SINV rescue. It could be a useful tool for the rescue of large single strand RNA viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2.