Career
Food cooking machine operators and tenders
Run the machines that cook food at scale.
Here's what you actually need to know.
The work
What people in this job do
- Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses.
- Read work orders, recipes, or formulas to determine cooking times and temperatures, and ingredient specifications.
- Observe gauges, dials, and product characteristics, and adjust controls to maintain appropriate temperature, pressure, and flow of ingredients.
- Measure or weigh ingredients, using scales or measuring containers.
- Tend or operate and control equipment, such as kettles, cookers, vats and tanks, and boilers, to cook ingredients or prepare products for further 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?
“Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses.”
Development
What would you need to build over the next 5–10 years?
Operations Monitoring, Monitoring, Reading Comprehension, Operation and Control.
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 $41,590 a year and 3,700 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 and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders$44,810 · +0.4%
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders$51,610 · -5.7%
- Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders$41,330 · +5.9%
- Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and Tenders$43,530 · +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.