With nearly 40 years of experience in the food industry, Debra Hellbach, Manager at Vancouver Island University's Centre for Seafood Innovation, has won several awards for her work. An advocate for food in general, and food conservation in particular, this educator is, above all, a born communicator who has always held the seafood industry "near and dear" to her heart.
She defines herself as "a food evangelist" and is convinced that the best way to educate is through entertainment. If instead of Debra's TalentView this were Debra's Show, we bet we'd have a couple of episodes titled 'Food & Fun' or 'Seafood & Education'. The woman who claims that "seafood is healthy, fast food" and her "very different way of thinking about innovation" are here to spread the word. This time, she's set her sights not only on the public but, more importantly, on students and the industry itself, and she is having fun doing it!
"When you put it in print, it's very hard to believe that I've been in the industry for that long". So begins our talk with Debra. Our questions have made her look back and realize that "it's really quite funny because I can remember some of my first adventures in the industry, and they were seafood related". When she did her Food Science Degree, her first destination was BC Packers, a now-shuttered company that, as far as she remembers, was the largest seafood manufacturer in British Columbia. "That goes back to the 80s", long before some of our readers were born as she says, "but I was involved in the seafood industry, and it's always been near and dear to my heart". It has been there her entire life. "If you are involved in food, you'll always have a job", she claims, "that's why I went into food science".
As food scientist with a master's degree in Communication, the first thing Debra says about herself on her LinkedIn profile is that she loves "helping people make and market good food by connecting them with expertise and resources". Right after that, she says that her "secret powers" are "broad experience, amazing connections, and focusing on what matters". Throughout her nearly four decades of experience, she has used her powers to help many 'foodpreneurs' – she considers herself their "life-long promoter" – and so when this job came up, she saw it as a chance to continue that promotional work. For her, working with academia and students is very important, not only to help them understand the value of the food system but also to enrich applied research projects with their fresh perspectives.
"I saw an opportunity to make a difference. And that it's focused on seafood is absolutely fantastic", she tells us. As Debra recalls, Canada has one of the largest coastlines in the world, "we used to be a top exporter of seafood and that's declined, I think we're #8 now, and that just doesn't make any sense to me", she explains. "We should be doing much better in the seafood arena. Obviously, aquaculture is a prime way to proceed, we need to focus on aquaculture, and I think the way to do that is through the young people and our up-and-coming leaders. And so that is why I took this position. I saw it as a real opportunity".
An opportunity she's also having fun with. "I'm at the tail end of my career so, this is fun, right? I mean, it is really fun for me to work with students and to be part of the solution. And I think after this long career where I've been helping on a very small basis, working mainly with small companies and trying to help them move forward, I think I've landed on a potential formula where I can make a difference and so that in itself is extremely rewarding for me".
The British Columbia government established a network of Food Hubs that aims to support local food industry. The Centre for Seafood Innovation (CSI) at Vancouver Island University (VIU) was born under that umbrella, to work hand in hand with the seafood industry. At the time of the center's establishment, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Blue Economy Strategy and the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance had identified research, public relations, and marketing activities as the areas the industry needed to focus on, and so a project got off the ground in which Debra was a perfect fit. As she explains, she is a "generalist" who has made many connections over the past 40 years. "I have this communications portfolio that I can draw on to help the industry. And so that's where we're looking at applied research, public education, and commercialization".
To understand how VIU's Centre for Seafood Innovation works, Debra Hellbach explains that, first, it is important to understand that "innovation means so many things to so many different people". They have decided to focus on two definitions of innovation. The first of these definitions, the simplest, is "a match between a need and a solution that results in added value". The second, a bit more elaborate, consists of "extracting value from knowledge". To put it more graphically, CSI is more knowledge-based than physical. "We are not an innovation centre where you come with something, and we are going to transform it into something else using equipment and innovation. We are going to do it through knowledge-based work with experts, with existing resources to try to help the industry move forward, and then we will grow as we go along", she explains, and, as a good educator and communicator, she gives us an example.
'Exposing students to the food system' was the official name of a project that they eventually ended up calling 'The Oyster Challenge'. It was still the time of the pandemic and due to food service closures, there were a lot of unharvested oysters that were therefore too big. "We saw this and I thought well, this was an opportunity to do some product differentiation", she explains, "working with culinary students, can we create a culinary at new products from these oysters and then demonstrate to industry that this is an opportunity?". They could, but along the way, they learned even more. "We ran into the labor issue, and we couldn't get shucked oysters", CSI's Manager tells us. The solution came through innovation, using high-pressure processing to pop the oysters open. They enlisted the help of HPP Canada, which made their job easier and taught the students how to use high-pressure processing technology. The field trip that took them from Nanaimo to Vancouver also allowed the students to visit other processing facilities during the time they were there. So, while they were getting this hands-on experience with seafood research, they were also learning about food technology and processing, and learning more about their career options.
Back at CSI with all that information, the students participated in three labs in which their only instructions were "to create cooked products that could be used in an institution". In British Columbia, the government has the Feed BC program where they are trying to increase the number of local foods used in institutions, but seafood is very under-represented. Debra and her team saw a new opportunity there and asked students to make oyster dishes that could be sold in a university cafeteria. Those dishes were presented to the industry at a large event where expert judges scored them. The prize included the winning dish being served in the university cafeteria. A very rewarding project that could be carried out without any facilities other than those already available at the university. When they need specialized equipment, they went where they already exist, fostering collaboration between companies and institutions within the industry. "That's the kind of project that we can do at the university and it's innovative in its design and delivery", summarizes Debra.
This original approach to innovation has a second part that goes beyond academia. "It is a very different way of thinking about innovation and it's looking at communication and public education", Debra Hellbach tells WeAreAquaculture. VIU's Centre for Seafood not only contributes with ideas for value-added products like the one in the example just explained- something Debra herself acknowledges that, in normal times, is not in the industry's best interest because "they can sell everything they have without investing further into that value-added processing -". The CSI also provides a space where students, industry, and the general public can "break bread together", a space to talk to people while they eat and stimulate some discussion.
Let's go back to the oyster example. At the lunch dedicated to them, they had an oyster farmer talking about the challenges he faces in the industry while lunch attendees – "residents that are a little bit negative about the industry because of some of the garbage that they see" – listened. "At the end of the day, there was more mutual understanding between the two and that's how you get support for both ways", Debra explains, and adds, "the industry has to understand what the residents are concerned about and vice versa". They've talked about – and tasted – oysters, seaweed, sturgeon… any seafood product has a place in this project. It's all about sharing together. "The idea was to improve relations between the local residents, shellfish, aquaculture companies, and the university itself. And we also wanted to provide experiential learning opportunities for the students. We had 100% participation every time". Gradually, the success of these events has spread, and the industry has shown increasing interest. Debra boasts, energetic team members like Olivia Alexander, a marine scientist with a passion for public education, are her secrets to this success.
At one point in our talk, Debra Hellbach tells us, "I'm sure everybody knows the way to someone's heart is through their stomach. Well, I think the way to people's brains is through their stomachs as well". We said it at the beginning, she is a born communicator, "a food evangelist", who is always thinking of ways to spread the word about seafood. "We need to educate people about how important food is and how aquaculture provides sustainable solutions. But we have to do it through entertainment education because people don't listen to facts and figures", she says. "We have to take a multifaceted approach but the days of fact sheets, GDP, and number of employees just doesn't cut it anymore". Debra believes that to really reach the public you have to entertain. These 'Let's Talk Seafood" events are both entertaining and highly educational.
"People need food. And linking them to where their food comes from is really important for the industry", she claims. "I think the industry is not very good at communicating and that's why I went into communications because I didn't understand why people don't get it. From a facts and figures standpoint, it makes so much sense to shift to aquaculture. But people don't get that. So, how do we communicate better?". The Manager at Vancouver Island University's Centre for Seafood Innovation is clear, and as she told us in our article on aquaculture's public image: "I 100% believe in the power of entertainment education".
When she talks about communication and education, Debra is passionate. She knows that her work matters, that something as seemingly simple as changing an MBA case study and putting a food company at the center of the project can change the future. "If a few more people like me would work with universities in any country, and just get them to change their case studies, we can influence thousands of people about the importance of the food industry", she states. So, when we talk about the future, she recognizes that the challenge for the CSI is as basic as surviving. They have funding for the first three years and can cover the overhead, but how do they cover the cost of labor and develop their capacity to address problems without narrowing the focus? To be self-sufficient, that is their challenge.
As for the seafood industry in general, if you focus on the projections about seafood consumption increasing globally, according to Debra, there are lots of opportunities but also lots of challenges. Climate change, labor, regulatory complexities – primarily in British Columbia, where "the regulatory issues are mind-boggling and hinder the future of aquaculture" right now -, and the negative public perception are all huge issues that the industry has to work on. While admitting that she may be wrong about the public's perception among the sector's main challenges, the Manager at Vancouver Island University Centre for Seafood Innovation insists on its importance. "We're not going to get support if we don't have public support. And so that is an area where I'm concentrating a lot. Any applied research that we do, we will attach communications components to that, so people understand that that's what we're doing", she claims.
"Putting a face to the industry is really important", she continues, and not just from, shall we say, an external point of view. We were talking about labor as one of the main challenges. Debra is convinced that the industry's problems in attracting labor are also related to its public perception. In her opinion, reducing it just to wages is a mistake, it would be good to do some research on the labor side and find out what can be done. "You have to make it interesting and make people proud to work in this area", she says. "There are plenty of examples of other industries that have taken boring jobs and turned them into good jobs. And why don't we look into that? Why don't we look at other industries and figure out how we can do it better?", she wonders. And she answers herself: "Because just like other people, the industry frames things in a certain way. They have these preconceived pictures in their mind that this is how things are going to go and it's very hard for them to see outside of that and that's the only way we're gonna solve these situations, we have to go outside of the box to figure out how to solve some of these problems".
Debra Hellbach has maintained that idea throughout the talk. Try new things, innovate and make a name for yourself. That's what the Seafood Innovation Center she directs needs, that's what the industry needs. The students she works with will be the workers and managers of the future of the sector. The public they present their proposals to is who will support them, or not. The future of the seafood industry needs them all and the best way to bring them together is through communication. "It's all about communication. I guess that's how we'll end it".