Chapman professor keeps food fraud off shelves
Associate professor Rosalee Hellberg, who is also the associate program director of food science, conducts studies to detect mislabeling on seafood products and develop food safety practices to detect pathogens. She runs Chapman’s Food Protection Lab, which offers unique research opportunities to students interested in food fraud and food safety. Pictured, from left: Hellberg, Eduardo Hernandez and Brittany Zavala. Photos courtesy of Rosalee Hellberg
How does a customer know with certainty that the Italian Olive Oil they purchased was actually made in Italy? How can one be sure canned tuna isn’t actually tilapia or the fresh-squeezed labeled orange juice isn’t watered down? Every day in grocery stores around the nation, consumers place their trust in the fact that product labels are telling the truth.
Rosalee Hellberg, Chapman’s associate program director of food science, specializes in food safety and food fraud, working to ensure that the food on the shelves aren’t deceiving buyers for economic gain.
“Food safety really affects our everyday lives, and food fraud also affects a lot of the food supply, but people are less aware of it. It's any time food is intentionally misrepresented,” said Hellberg, who is also an associate professor at the university. “For example, if the label declares one thing, but the food actually contains something else, then there's fraud happening. Basically, it's a criminal activity. Someone's out to make money, and they're going to call something saffron, when actually, it's a lower quality product.”
Hellberg started and has overseen the Food Protection Lab since coming to Chapman in 2012. The lab is dedicated to applying rapid methods for the detection of food fraud and food contaminants. In several cases, the lab has worked alongside the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and provided them with their results — occasionally sparking them to pursue investigations. Studies conducted by the Food Protection Lab are available to view on their website.
Although Hellberg finds joy in using bioluminescence for rapid detection of pathogens and using DNA barcoding to detect food fraud in seafood, she told The Panther that her favorite part of research is helping her students grow.
“Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s one of my favorite parts of the job — mentoring students in the laboratory,” Hellberg said. “It’s so nice to see them go from when they first come into the lab and they don’t know a lot of the techniques, to coming out with a publication and being very confident in their skills. It’s very rewarding to see.”
“Over the years, I’ve learned that it’s one of my favorite parts of the job — mentoring students in the laboratory. It’s so nice to see them go from when they first come into the lab and they don’t know a lot of the techniques, to coming out with a publication and being very confident in their skills. It’s very rewarding to see.”
In the lab’s most recent study, Hellberg and her students investigated “short-weighting” in frozen shrimp packages. After analyzing 106 frozen shrimp samples from Orange County stores, they concluded that one-third were mislabeled and/or weighted less than the advertised label, one-fourth contained too much ice and one-fifth were different species of shrimp than advertised.
2023 alumna McKenna Rivers, who received her master’s in food science, served as a lead student investigator on the project for her thesis. Rivers now works as a food safety and quality analyst for Chipotle. She credits her time as a mentee under Hellberg as helping give a new perspective to her future.
“I always thought I was going into product development, but after working in Dr. Hellberg’s lab and learning about food safety, food fraud and validation studies, it pushed me into the food safety quality assurance role. I’m just really thankful to Dr. Hellberg for helping me grow as a person and helping me get ready to enter into the food industry.”
Hailing from Astoria, Oregon, Hellberg graduated from Lewis and Clark College with a bachelor’s in biochemistry in 2002. She moved back home and mowed lawns for the local school district before accepting a lab technician position at a food science lab.
Hellberg went on to earn a master's and a doctoral degree in food science and technology, specializing in seafood safety and fish labeling. She then became a postdoctoral fellow and went on to work for the FDA. However, with all her time dedicated to research, she sought a change of pace.
“As I started working more in research, it didn’t feel very balanced to just (conduct) research all the time. You’re using one part of the brain, and it feels like it gets overworked,” Hellberg said. “You start obsessing about all of your research projects… Once I started teaching, I realized how much I enjoyed it. It's one of those things where I never knew how much I would like it until I started doing it… They complement each other very well.”
“As I started working more in research, it didn’t feel very balanced to just (conduct) research all the time. You’re using one part of the brain, and it feels like it gets overworked. You start obsessing about all of your research projects… Once I started teaching, I realized how much I enjoyed it. It’s one of those things where I never knew how much I would like it until I started doing it… They complement each other very well.”
Hellberg started the Food Protection Lab in 2012, which has worked with the Food and Drug Administration as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Hellberg teaches the Food Fraud, Food Microbiology, Food Science and the Food Industry Tour course at Chapman. The latter course, offered during interterm, shows students food science in action, taking them to processing facilities for goods ranging from hummus to cookies to cereal to dairy.
“That class is really informative because students in our program are learning about food science in the classroom, but then to go out and see how it’s actually happening in real life is really exciting for them. I really enjoy it as well,” Hellberg said.
Rivers told The Panther that Hellberg refrains from micromanaging and allows students freedom in the classroom to explore their projects. Her Food Protection Lab students have ended up at companies such as Impossible Foods, Village Green Foods, Sovereign Flavors and Blommer Chocolate Company. Aside from her position at Chipotle, Rivers was also inspired by Hellberg to become an educator and now teaches biology and food science courses at Chapman.
“She is one of my biggest inspirations, especially coming out of Chapman. She’s a really big advocate for her students and her thesis advisees as well, just making sure they’re represented and making sure that we’re properly trained. She’s helped organize and helped us get involved in certain things… She’s just been phenomenal. She’s really given me a lot of opportunities to not only grow in my research but (also) grow as a researcher and grow as myself.”
