{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/food-cooking-machine-operators-and-tenders/", "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": "Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders", "soc_code": "51-3093", "category": "Production", "us_employment": 31250, "median_annual_wage": 41590 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 35, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 14, "liability_shield": 2, "trust_premium": 3, "judgment_accountability": 5 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Setting fryer or retort time-and-temperature, holding a hold-tube at 161°F, and logging CCP readings are already PLC-and-recorder functions on any line built this century, but hand-loading irregular product into baskets, clearing a jammed conveyor mid-cook, breaking down and sanitizing a kettle, and eyeballing a batch that came out pale or mushy keep enough of the shift unautomated to hold this at 11 rather than down in the single digits.", "embodiment": "The shift is spent on a wet, hot plant floor moving 40-pound baskets and totes, reaching into steam-jacketed kettles and fryers, hosing down and reassembling equipment on sanitation, and working around live steam, hot oil, and moving belts — uncontrolled enough to sit at 14, short of 18 because it is one fixed plant with guarded machines rather than an unpredictable outdoor or client site.", "liability_shield": "No state license, no board, no personal signature: the plant's HACCP plan and the PCQI or QA manager who wrote it carry the food-safety accountability, and a food-handler card plus in-house line training is the whole credential wall, which is why this lands at 2 rather than 0-only-because-you-initial-the-cook-log.", "trust_premium": "Product leaves in a sealed package with a lot code and no name attached, and the only relationships that matter are with the line lead and the sanitation crew on your own shift — worth a 3 because supervisors do retain the operators who know a particular retort's quirks, not because any customer asks for you.", "judgment_accountability": "Cook parameters come from a written recipe and the HACCP critical limits, deviations go to QA or the supervisor rather than being resolved on the floor, and the discretion you actually own — call this batch off-texture, stop the line for a jam, adjust for a slightly wetter incoming lot — is real but bounded, putting it at 5 rather than in the procedural-only 0-2 range." }, "rationale": "The core loop — load product, set time/temperature, watch gauges, pull batches, log readings, clean the equipment — is physical work in a food plant, which shields it from language AI but not from the PLC-and-sensor automation that has been eating these lines for decades. Recipe adherence, batch logging, and process-parameter monitoring are already handled by control systems on modern lines; what keeps a human on the floor is unjamming conveyors, hand-loading awkward product, sanitation, and catching an off-color or off-texture batch. There is no license, no signature, and no customer relationship to defend the role.", "outlook": "Headcount keeps shrinking as plants consolidate onto automated cook lines, and the jobs that remain shift from tending to setting up, cleaning, and repairing the machines.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "FDA FSMA preventive-controls rules already require a 'preventive controls qualified individual' (PCQI) to validate and sign off on critical control points; if FDA or a large customer audit scheme (SQF, BRCGS) tightens this so that a named, trained human operator must personally verify and initial each thermal-process CCP deviation rather than accepting automated sensor logs, the tender role acquires a documentary signature function. Low-acid canned food regulation (21 CFR 113) already mandates certified retort operator supervision — extension of that certification model beyond retorts to broader cooking lines is the specific watchable change.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 5 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: as PLC control absorbs time/temp setting, gauge watching and batch logging, what remains is jam clearing, hand-loading irregular product, sanitation teardown in confined wet spaces, and sensory catch of off-batches. That residual bundle is genuinely harder to automate than the tier being taken. The score rises as the routine tier disappears — visible as job postings shifting from 'operator' to 'line technician/sanitation' language.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "If plant footprints keep favoring high-mix, short-run co-packing (private label, allergen-segregated runs, frequent changeovers) over single-product continuous lines, the environment stays unpredictable: manual changeover, allergen washdown, varied product geometry. Watchable in co-packer capacity growth and changeover frequency per shift.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "If a food-safety recall or listeria outbreak leads to criminal exposure for line-level personnel (as in the Blue Bell and Peanut Corporation of America prosecutions, which reached managers), and firms respond by making the operator on shift the documented decision-owner for hold/release of a suspect batch, the role owns a consequential ambiguous call. Watch for 'operator authority to stop the line' clauses in HACCP plans and union contracts.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 } ], "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to trust premium: buyers of packaged food never learn who tended the cooker and do not pay for it. Even with every lever, this stays a production job whose core loop is the archetype of what PLC automation was built for; the ceiling is roughly mid-50s and the headcount trend can fall even as the per-worker score rises." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 33340, "wage": 28420 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 32260, "wage": 30120 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 30030, "wage": 31110 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 26530, "wage": 33010 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 26710, "wage": 35890 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 26740, "wage": 36700 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 29730, "wage": 38550 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 27660, "wage": 40550 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 31250, "wage": 41590 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -6.3, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "butchers-and-meat-cutters", "title": "Butchers and Meat Cutters", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 51, "median_wage": 40140, "overlap": 65, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Negotiation", "Persuasion", "Instructing" ] }, { "slug": "cooks-institution-and-cafeteria", "title": "Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 50, "median_wage": 37450, "overlap": 55, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Management of Personnel Resources", "Mathematics", "Instructing" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }