Daniela has always been into science and technology, studying food science and engineering at university in Santiago, Chile.
Her role as Innovation Manager with Sealord satisfies Daniela’s scientific mind and keeps her creative muscles working. The icing on the cake is the feel-good factor of working for a company that produces healthy, nutritious seafood from sustainable sources.
“It’s exciting to use the knowledge and tools we have as food technologists to increase fibre, decrease sodium levels or change packaging for greater recyclability, for example,” Daniela says.
“The nutritional content of the products we develop is very important, but we also need to ensure they are appealing, so that consumers are inspired to choose seafood as their protein source.’
Understanding market and industry trends in food, process and packaging development is somewhat of a superpower for innovation managers. This knowledge can be a nebula of ideas for new products and process optimisation. Idea generation, or ideation, is typically the first step in new product development, closely followed by market research to analyse whether that new product is viable.
Daniela leads three highly skilled technologists who work on ideation and new product pipeline development, new process development and process optimisation, packaging development, byproducts, automation and technical research. They work closely with Sealord’s sales, marketing, planning and operations teams to ensure they have all angles covered.
Like all high-performing, close-knit teams, Daniela’s team’s outputs are strengthened through external networks, suppliers and opportunities, she says.
“It’s important in food innovation that we don’t work in isolation of each other. We are fortunate in New Zealand to have people who are open to sharing ideas and collaborating. The blue economy cluster Moananui, based in Nelson with a global reach, is a good example of that, and we have a good relationship with research institutes like Lincoln Agritech, Cawthron Institute, Seafood NZ and Plant & Food Research.”
Daniela was promoted into the Innovation Manager role from a senior innovation technologist position at Sealord, with many years in food technology before this. Along the way she has gained insight into the attributes of a great technologist.
She says a deep understanding of food and ingredients, additives and processes, coupled with skills in effective project management, stakeholder engagement, leadership and a drive to communicate and collaborate with other departments is a winning combination.
Daniela encourages anyone curious about food technology and food innovation to seriously consider making it their choice of study.
“It is a good degree – fun, interesting and one of those resilient qualifications that will require people to lead for some time. It requires a future focus and can be a very rewarding career.”
