{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/food-preparation-and-serving-related-workers-all-other/",
  "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 Preparation and Serving Related Workers, All Other",
    "soc_code": "35-9099",
    "category": "Food",
    "us_employment": 84630,
    "median_annual_wage": 35840
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 40,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 15,
    "liability_shield": 2,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 4
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "At 13 the physical core — carrying loaded trays across a crowded dining room, refilling a hot line, portioning trays for patient or student meal service, bussing and sanitizing between covers — still needs a person, but the score stops short of 14+ because the position itself is often deleted rather than automated: self-order kiosks, tray-return conveyors, automated beverage and fry stations and simple staffing cuts absorb the work without any machine replicating your hands.",
    "embodiment": "15 reflects a full shift standing and walking on wet tile with hot pans, sheet trays, steam tables, dish machines and unpredictable spills and customers — uncontrolled enough that no fixed robot arm can be pointed at it, though it stays below the high teens because the room is indoors, mapped, and climate-controlled rather than a construction site or a roof.",
    "liability_shield": "A 2 is because the only credential in play is a county food handler card — a few hours of training, renewable, transferable to any worker in a day — and when a foodborne illness complaint lands it is the establishment's permit and the certified food protection manager who answer to the health inspector, never you.",
    "trust_premium": "6 recognizes that regulars in a hospital cafeteria, school line or corporate commissary do come to know your face and you do smooth over complaints and dietary questions, but the guest is buying the meal and the venue — no one follows a food runner to a different employer.",
    "judgment_accountability": "4 fits because the calls you make are bounded by written specs: portion sizes on the recipe card, holding temperatures on the HACCP log, allergen questions escalated to the cook or supervisor, and a manager voids the check — real-time judgment about pacing and priority, but nothing where you own an ambiguous outcome."
  },
  "rationale": "This is a catch-all bucket — food runners, dining attendants in institutional settings, commissary and food-line helpers, sample demonstrators — and the modal worker spends the shift on their feet handling trays, stocking lines, portioning, wiping surfaces and answering customer questions. Almost none of that is text or screen work, so language AI barely touches it; the real threat is kiosk ordering, conveyor and robotic drink/fry stations, and simple restructuring that deletes the position rather than automating each task. There is no license, no signature, and little decision authority, so the only moat is a body in a messy, variable physical space.",
  "outlook": "The job survives physically but shrinks in headcount as kiosks, automated beverage and fry stations, and leaner staffing models absorb the order-taking and simple-assembly share of the shift.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Sustained failure of robotic fry/drink/bussing deployments in cluttered, high-variance dining rooms — the visible pattern where Flippy and Servi-type units get pulled back to narrow single-station tasks and humans keep the tray-running, spill, allergen-cross-contact and reset-the-line work; if robot bussing stays confined to flat-floor chain layouts, the modal institutional/school/hospital tray role stays hands-only",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift within the bucket: kiosks and conveyor stations delete order-taking and simple portioning, leaving allergen verification, texture-modified/pureed diet assembly for dysphagia patients, and choking-risk observation in hospital and eldercare dining — which are the tiers current systems cannot do. Two genuine tiers exist here (line-helper vs. diet-aide) but the automated tier is where most of the 84,630 sit, so the shift is partly a headcount cut rather than an upgrade",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State food-code adoption requiring a Certified Food Protection Manager or trained food handler physically present and personally documented for allergen-declared and texture-modified plates — FDA Food Code 2022 already pushes the Person In Charge and food allergen awareness requirement; a CMS or state long-term-care rule making the certified diet aide the named signer on tray-line allergen and consistency checks would attach a human name to each service",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Written escalation authority in institutional dining: rules or facility policy giving the tray-line attendant explicit power to reject a plate that fails a diet order or allergen check, with the refusal logged — analogous to the Person In Charge exclusion authority already in the Food Code",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Union contracts that fix human staffing ratios per dining room or per resident count rather than per meal — UNITE HERE and SEIU have already bargained tech-displacement and staffing-floor language in hotel and healthcare food service; a contract that prices a human server into the meal rate creates a buyer-side floor even where a kiosk would suffice",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Realistic ceiling around 55-60. The binding problem is not that machines do this work better — it is restructuring that deletes the position entirely, and no license or trust argument protects a role that simply stops existing when ordering moves to a screen. The liability and judgment levers only reach the minority of this bucket working in healthcare, school and eldercare dining under food-code and CMS oversight; food runners, samplers and commissary helpers in commercial settings have no plausible route on any institutional dimension."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 56350,
        "wage": 22620
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 55980,
        "wage": 23850
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 72300,
        "wage": 24970
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 69070,
        "wage": 27080
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 83240,
        "wage": 29120
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 81930,
        "wage": 30840
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 86350,
        "wage": 33870
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 89580,
        "wage": 34830
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 84630,
        "wage": 35840
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 50.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}