{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/cooks-institution-and-cafeteria/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria",
    "soc_code": "35-2012",
    "category": "Food",
    "us_employment": 441050,
    "median_annual_wage": 37450
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 50,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 14,
    "embodiment": 18,
    "liability_shield": 5,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 7
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Breaking down cases of chicken, running a steam table through a 40-minute lunch rush, adjusting a batch that's too thin, and scrubbing a tilt skillet are tasks no software touches — the 14 rather than 18 reflects that the recipe scaling, cycle-menu writing, production sheets, and par ordering that fill your prep morning are already being generated by Nutrislice-type systems and district dietitians.",
    "embodiment": "You are on your feet six to eight hours in 90-degree kitchen heat, lifting 50-pound stock pots and sheet pans, working around slicers, convection ovens, and 350-degree fryer oil in a space where the floor is wet and three other people are moving through it — an 18 not a 20 only because it's a fixed kitchen rather than an outdoor or unpredictable site.",
    "liability_shield": "A ServSafe food handler card or a county health card is typically a few hours of online training and a $15 test, and when an inspector writes up a violation or a norovirus outbreak is traced to the kitchen, the citation lands on the facility's permit and the certified food protection manager — not on your personal license.",
    "trust_premium": "Students, patients, and residents know the cook who remembers that Room 214 gets no salt and who will find them something when the entree is fish again, but nobody chooses the cafeteria — they eat there because it's the only option, so the relationship never becomes the reason the job exists.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You make real calls on the fly — substituting when the delivery is short, deciding a holding pan that's been at 128°F gets dumped, catching that a tray headed to a peanut-allergy student has the wrong cookie — but menus, portion sizes, HACCP critical limits, and USDA meal-pattern requirements are handed to you as written procedure, which caps this at 7."
  },
  "rationale": "Cooking 400 lunches on a line — knife work, batch cooking, holding temps, plating, cleaning hot equipment — is physical work in a chaotic environment that language models cannot touch and current kitchen robotics handles only in narrow, high-volume niches (fryers, rice, bowl assembly). The real exposure isn't a robot cook; it's software and supply chain: AI-generated cycle menus, automated nutrition and allergen compliance, forecast-driven ordering, and the ongoing shift of school, hospital, and prison food toward centralized commissaries and pre-portioned heat-and-serve, which cuts scratch-cooking headcount per site. Food handler cards are cheap and near-universal, so the licensing moat is thin.",
  "outlook": "The job persists physically but shrinks per facility over the next decade as pre-portioned commissary food and AI-run menu, ordering, and compliance systems absorb the planning work — the cooks who stay are the certified leads running the line, the special-diet stations, and the scratch kitchens.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State/local adoption of the FDA Food Code provision requiring a Certified Food Protection Manager physically present during all hours of operation (not just one per facility), plus CMS long-term-care survey findings that name the on-site cook as responsible for HACCP deviation logs and therapeutic-diet accuracy. Would make a certified human's signature on cook-chill and holding-temp records non-delegable rather than a $15 food handler card.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Allergen-fatality litigation and state school allergen laws (following the Natasha's Law model in the UK for pre-packed-for-direct-sale labeling) placing the final substitution/cross-contact call on the named kitchen lead, with documented refusal authority to serve a tray. Also IDDSI dysphagia texture-level verification in hospitals and nursing homes, where a wrong-consistency tray is a reportable adverse event.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift within the same job: as heat-and-serve absorbs the routine batch tier, what remains per site is medical and religious diet execution — renal, low-sodium, texture-modified, halal/kosher separation, allergen-isolated prep — which is low-volume, high-variance, and not what commissaries ship. This raises the score only in healthcare and corrections settings, not K-12 lines.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Procurement rules that pay for on-site scratch cooking as a line item: California's $720M school kitchen infrastructure and scratch-cooking grants, USDA farm-to-school local-purchase set-asides, and university dining RFPs scored on percentage of scratch-prepared meals. These buy labor hours specifically because the buyer wants food made by people on premises. Thin outside publicly funded and unionized food service.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Union contract language (UNITE HERE, SEIU, AFSCME school food locals) setting minimum on-site certified-cook staffing ratios per meals served, or bargaining limits on commissary substitution — the mechanism that has actually protected headcount in hospital and campus dining.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Embodiment is already near ceiling at 18 and cannot meaningfully rise. The dominant threat is not robotics but centralization of production off-site, and no liability or trust lever stops a district from closing kitchens and buying pre-portioned trays — those levers only raise the value of the cooks who remain. Realistic total headroom is roughly 60-65, and only in healthcare, corrections, and grant-funded school systems."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 404120,
        "wage": 25860
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 400320,
        "wage": 26860
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 402480,
        "wage": 27750
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 387300,
        "wage": 28650
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 392860,
        "wage": 29910
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 417780,
        "wage": 32510
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 435640,
        "wage": 35320
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 448260,
        "wage": 36450
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 441050,
        "wage": 37450
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 9.1,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "cooks-private-household",
      "title": "Cooks, Private Household",
      "verdict": "SAFE",
      "risk_resistance": 67,
      "median_wage": 47940,
      "overlap": 68,
      "skills_to_close": []
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}