Career
Food and tobacco roasting, baking, and drying machine operators and tenders
Run machines that roast, bake and dry food.
Here's what you actually need to know.
The work
What people in this job do
- Observe, feel, taste, or otherwise examine products during and after processing to ensure conformance to standards.
- Set temperature and time controls, light ovens, burners, driers, or roasters, and start equipment, such as conveyors, cylinders, blowers, driers, or pumps.
- Observe temperature, humidity, pressure gauges, and product samples and adjust controls, such as thermostats and valves, to maintain prescribed operating conditions for specific stages.
- Observe flow of materials and listen for machine malfunctions, such as jamming or spillage, and notify supervisors if corrective actions fail.
- Record production data, such as weight and amount of product processed, type of product, and time and temperature of processing.
The outlook
How the forecast changed this year
The deeper question
What kind of person does this path ask you to become?
What this work centers on
O*NET interest profile, scored 1–7.
The work
Do you want most of your days spent on objects & tools, then information & systems?
Responsibility
Are you willing to be the one responsible for this?
“Observe, feel, taste, or otherwise examine products during and after processing to ensure conformance to standards.”
Development
What would you need to build over the next 5–10 years?
Operations Monitoring, Monitoring, Reading Comprehension, Quality Control Analysis.
Trade-offs
What does it ask of you in exchange?
No degree beyond high school, though moderate-term on-the-job training is typical, for a median of $44,810 a year and 2,500 openings nationally each year.
Paths in
Degrees that lead here
- NO MATCHCIP 99.9999
Paths across
Careers that use similar skills
- Food Batchmakers$42,290 · +6.5%
- Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders$41,590 · -0.3%
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders$51,610 · -5.7%
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders$48,040 · +2.6%
- Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products$35,730 · -3.4%
Ask anything about this career.
“Would this make sense if I don't want to sit at a desk all day?” Answers will come from the sources on this page, with citations. Coming soon.
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Sources
- BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- BLS Employment Projections, 2024–34 (archived), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), National Center for O*NET Development / U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 Crosswalk, NCES and BLS. Retrieved 2026-10-01.