“It’s rewarding to expose where cheating is going on in the (food) industry and to share that with consumers as well as regulatory agencies.” Rosalee Hellberg, who leads Chapman’s Food Protection Lab
Professor Rosalee Hellberg, left, heads the Chapman Food Protection Lab and is the lead editor of the book “Food Fraud: A Global Threat With Public Health and Economic Consequences.”
FILLET OF FRAUD A Chapman food science professor and her students use molecular tools to peel back the layers of deceptive labeling. BY DENNIS ARP
O
n a hook or in a net, red snapper isn’t difficult to distinguish from rockfish or tilapia. But once the fish are filleted, they become hard to tell apart, making it easy for the unscrupulous to slip imposters past the typical guards of consumer protection. Just how easy? Well, a recent study by Professor Rosalee Hellberg and the Food Protection Lab at Chapman University found that 92% of retail samples labeled as red snapper were in fact a different species. Molecular testing identified them as mahi mahi, rockfish, tilapia or other snapper species. Definitely not what shoppers were paying extra to get. “There are a lot of issues and a lot of consequences of food fraud,” says Hellberg, Ph.D., associate professor of food science in Chapman’s Schmid College of Science and Technology. Hellberg’s research, which focuses on rapid methods for detection of food fraud and food contaminants, has greatly benefited from the university’s Faculty Opportunity Fund.
Faculty Opportunity Fund Supports Emerging Research Launched in 2017, the fund supports Chapman research and creative activity as the researchers also pursue external funding. Over its three-year existence, the Faculty Opportunity Fund has seeded dozens of projects with awards of up to $15,000. For Hellberg and the Food Protection Lab, the funding helped support research that included advances in multimode hyperspectral imaging and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology to reveal undeclared species in food products. In addition to testing seafood, the lab applies its molecular techniques to root out unlabeled ingredients in pet foods, game meats and dietary supplements.
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
