I had the pleasure of meeting Jacqui Plozza, Accredited Practicing Dietitian, through Cobram Estate, an olive oil company in both the United States and Australia. Jacqui has such an exciting job working for a family-run business that is feeding the world with good health and evidence-based nutrition messaging. Jacqui taught me many new things about olive oil. I personally want her job. Cobram Estate – if you’re hiring more dietitians, we want to work for you! Read on to learn why. - Sarah

What attracted you to the field of nutrition and dietetics?
Food first and foremost – I love good food! I think most dietitians and nutritionists would give that answer, we love all things food related. Physiology is also one of my favorite topics - understanding how the body works and what impacts it. Dietetics combines those two loves.

I’ve also grown up with loved ones living with Type 1 Diabetes my whole life. That gives perspective and a real appreciation of what it’s like to live with a long-term health condition. It impacts all aspects of life day in day out, in ways that we wouldn’t normally think about. Providing evidence-based health and nutrition advice and interventions in ways that mean something in the life of the people coming to you for advice is what I love most. That and providing education that’s relatable, jargon free and helps dispel myths. There’s so much inaccurate information out there. Helping people navigate that and dispelling myths so they can go back to good whole foods is great.

Your Job Title?
Nutrition Strategy and Education Manager

Company you are with now?
Cobram Estate

Website:

cobramestate.com

Social Media:

- Instagram: @wellbeingdiaries

- Instagram: @cobramestateusa

- Instagram:@cobramestate

Describe a typical (or not so typical) day-in-the-work-life for you?
I’m quite lucky to have a role where no two days look the same!

One of my key roles at Cobram Estate is educating other health professionals on the science of high-quality Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO). We all get EVOO is a very healthy food. The science is solid. Where my role adds value to other dietitians is equipping them with the latest food industry knowledge and research to help dispel common fats and oils myths. I met Sarah after inviting her along on a tour of our groves in California during harvest last month.

Experiencing harvest first-hand is the ultimate way to understand why and how the production methods of making extra virgin olive oil are so critical to its suitability for high heat cooking, health, quality and taste. During harvest my days can be spent at the olive groves taking other health professionals through the groves and providing this experience first-hand.

I also work with key health professional partnerships and conferences to provide this type of educating and create new and relevant health resources. Most recently we had a booth at FNCE. It was brilliant to meet so many local RDs and be able to provide the science of EVOO to help them dispel common cooking oil myths. It’s the best when someone walks away from the stand after thanking our team for giving them new science-based information that they find helpful in practice.

My days can also be spent providing media commentary to health magazines, journalists and other health professionals and lobbying government on key health policy legislation that is not up to date on the latest fats and oils research. Certainly, in Australia we still have a ways to go to ensure policy and decision makers are aware of the difference between Olive Oil and EVOO and refined seed oils.

How did you get your current job in dietetics?
I’ve been practicing for about a decade now and one of the things I love most about our profession is the huge diversity of roles that are available to us and the opportunities to step into different health care settings and different stages of the health service system. I’ve worked in private practice, government, eating disorder clinics, mental health, hospitals, aged care, community, drug and alcohol rehabilitation, corporate, food service, health insurance and telehealth.

My current role was advertised online with Dietitian Connection, which is our key networking dietitian association in Australia. When I saw the job, I wasn’t actively looking for a new job, but the position description sounded so exciting, fun and challenging and like a great fit. I called them that day to see if it was too late to apply and threw my hat in the ring.

What skills were you born with and what skills have you learned along the way?
I’m naturally empathetic and able to communicate and relate well to others. I’ll never forget how excited / nervous I was when I landed an interview for my Masters degree. What would they want to talk to me about?! Did I need to start memorizing nutrition textbooks for the next two weeks?! I called up my old university professor who told me “Jac, they just want to know you can talk to people and not just plants”. A great trait to have as a dietitian!

I also absolutely love to write which is why I started my blog and Instagram page @wellbeingdiaries earlier in the year. It’s a fun side project where I get to do more health writing and put a little more fun and humor into it.

Completing my Masters helped hone my research and critical analysis skills. Sometimes I think we forget the level of knowledge we’ve built. If I think back to before I started studying nutrition and dietetics, food choices were so confusing. My degree helped build skills to really critically analyze nutrition research and separate good quality research from weaker studies in order to communicate meaningful findings to the general public.