{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/food-processing-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 Processing Workers, All Other",
    "soc_code": "51-3099",
    "category": "Production",
    "us_employment": 65000,
    "median_annual_wage": 39680
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 35,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 13,
    "embodiment": 13,
    "liability_shield": 3,
    "trust_premium": 2,
    "judgment_accountability": 4
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Trimming irregular carcasses, hand-sorting soft fruit and mixing small artisan batches still defeat off-the-shelf machinery, but the weighing, checkweighing, labeling and palletizing portions of your shift are already done by machines in high-volume plants — that split of genuinely hard manual work against demonstrably automated tasks is what puts this at 13 rather than the high teens a butcher-level knife job would earn.",
    "embodiment": "You work standing on wet floors in coolers and cook rooms, hauling totes, reaching into hoppers, breaking down and scrubbing equipment after shift — physical and awkward, but inside a fixed plant with defined stations and conveyor lines, not a farm field or a construction site, which caps it at 13 instead of the high-teens uncontrolled-environment band.",
    "liability_shield": "No state licence stands between you and a machine: food-handler cards and HACCP awareness training run days, not years, and when a lot is contaminated the recall and the FDA/FSIS citation land on the plant and its QA manager, not on the person who logged the cooler temperature.",
    "trust_premium": "Nobody buying the retail pack knows your name, the line you ran, or the shift you worked; the brand and the USDA mark carry the customer relationship entirely.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Your calls are bounded by written specs — trim to the fat spec, hold the CCP at temperature, reject product outside the grade sheet, flag the deviation to a supervisor — real skill in execution but the escalation path and the corrective action are written down for you, which is a 4 rather than the 8-plus a QA technician who signs off on lot disposition would carry."
  },
  "rationale": "This is hands-on plant work — trimming, sorting, loading and tending processing lines, mixing and seasoning batches, packing and weighing, sanitizing equipment, logging temperatures and HACCP checks. Language AI barely touches it, but that's the wrong threat: the pressure comes from vision-guided sorters, portioning robots, automated weighers and palletizers, which are already installed in high-volume plants and keep getting cheaper. Variable natural products (irregular carcasses, soft produce, artisan batches) and cramped, wet, retrofit-unfriendly facilities are what keep these jobs on the floor.",
  "outlook": "Headcount in high-volume commodity plants keeps shrinking as sorting and packing automate, while workers who can run changeovers, fix jammed equipment, or handle irregular product hold steady or gain wage leverage.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "FSMA/HACCP records are already signature-bound, but the signer is usually a QA supervisor, not the line worker. If FDA or USDA-FSIS rulemaking (e.g. extending the FSMA 204 traceability recordkeeping regime, or FSIS carcass-disposition rules) requires a named, trained human on the floor to personally verify and sign critical control point monitoring — not an automated sensor log — a portion of these roles becomes a required-human role. Watch also for FSIS rules on AI-assisted carcass sorting requiring human inspection concurrence.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation has a genuine two-tier structure. Once vision sorters and portioners take the high-volume repetitive tier, what remains is changeover, sanitation of retrofit-unfriendly wet equipment, deviation handling, allergen-changeover verification and hand-work on irregular product. If plants automate the routine tier without automating sanitation and changeover, the residual job scores higher even as headcount falls.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Narrow route only: certified organic, kosher/halal, and 'hand-crafted' premium lines where the standard itself specifies human handling or supervision — e.g. kosher shechita and mashgiach presence, or artisan cheese/charcuterie PDO-style rules. If retailer or certifier standards codify human handling for a labelled premium segment, it rises for that segment, not the occupation as a whole.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "If a plant's food-safety culture requirements (pushed by GFSI schemes like SQF/BRC, or by insurer/retailer audit) formally give line workers stop-the-line authority with documented individual accountability for contamination and foreign-body calls, the role owns consequential ambiguous calls rather than just executing.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Even with every lever, this stays in the exposed band. The binding constraint is capital cost of robotics in cramped wet retrofit plants, not law or buyer preference — and that constraint erodes on its own schedule. Headcount can fall sharply while the residual role's scores rise."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 43540,
        "wage": 24460
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 42620,
        "wage": 25870
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 42890,
        "wage": 27550
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 41840,
        "wage": 29620
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 46360,
        "wage": 31890
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 47790,
        "wage": 34710
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 63970,
        "wage": 36890
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 57920,
        "wage": 38420
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 65000,
        "wage": 39680
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 49.3,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}