Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders
Operate or tend cooking equipment, such as steam cooking vats, deep fry cookers, pressure cookers, kettles, and boilers, to prepare food products.
Most important skills
- Operations Monitoring
- Reading Comprehension
- Monitoring
- Operation and Control
- Active Listening
- Critical Thinking
- Coordination
- Complex Problem Solving
Key knowledge
- Production and Processing
- Food Production
- Administration and Management
- Education and Training
- Mechanical
- English Language
- Computers and Electronics
- Customer and Personal Service
What the work involves
- Record production and test data, such as processing steps, temperature and steam readings, cooking time, batches processed, and test results.
- Listen for malfunction alarms, and shut down equipment and notify supervisors when necessary.
- Collect and examine product samples during production to test them for quality, color, content, consistency, viscosity, acidity, or specific gravity.
- Observe gauges, dials, and product characteristics, and adjust controls to maintain appropriate temperature, pressure, and flow of ingredients.
- Read work orders, recipes, or formulas to determine cooking times and temperatures, and ingredient specifications.
- Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses.
- Set temperature, pressure, and time controls, and start conveyers, machines, or pumps.
- Tend or operate and control equipment, such as kettles, cookers, vats and tanks, and boilers, to cook ingredients or prepare products for further processing.
Strongest interest areas (O*NET): Realistic, Conventional, Investigative.
Qualifications and licensing
- Most common education
- High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) (85.9% of respondents)
- Related experience
- Over 1 month, up to and including 3 months (27.1%)
- On-the-job training
- Anything beyond short demonstration, up to and including 1 month (41.1%)
- Preparation level
- O*NET job zone 2: Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed
- Licensing
- Not yet verified. Check your state licensing board.
Check before planning
- Licensing for Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders is not yet verified for any state: check the state licensing board before planning.
Limits
- Distributions show what current workers or occupational experts report, not legal minimums.
- Requirements vary by employer and state; time to qualify is not estimated.
Source: O*NET 31.0 Database (USDOL/ETA, CC BY 4.0); BLS Employment Projections · dataset 2026.10.8 · method e3-qualification-1.0.0
Work environment
How the typical conditions of this occupation compare with 911 occupations in O*NET (very low = the lowest fifth).
Levels are relative. Most occupations involve a lot of contact with people, for example, so “very low” can still mean regular contact; the last column shows what workers actually reported.
| Condition | Level | Compared with other occupations | Most common answer (O*NET survey) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact with others | Moderate | Higher on contact with others than 51% of occupations compared | 71% of surveyed respondents chose “Constant contact with others” |
| Dealing with the public | Low | Lower on dealing with the public than 66% of occupations compared | 50% of surveyed respondents chose “Very important” |
| Teamwork | High | Higher on teamwork than 76% of occupations compared | 71% of surveyed respondents chose “Extremely important” |
| Freedom to make decisions | Very high | Higher on freedom to make decisions than 86% of occupations compared | 75% of surveyed respondents chose “A lot of freedom” |
| Time pressure | High | Higher on time pressure than 72% of occupations compared | — |
| Conflict situations | Low | Lower on conflict situations than 78% of occupations compared | 50% of surveyed respondents chose “Once a year or more but not every month” |
| Dealing with unpleasant or angry people | Very low | Lower on dealing with unpleasant or angry people than 81% of occupations compared | 38% of surveyed respondents chose “Once a year or more but not every month” |
| Consequence of error | High | Higher on consequence of error than 77% of occupations compared | — |
Work-pressure profile
- Time pressure: high
- Conflict situations: low
- Dealing with unpleasant or angry people: very low
- Consequence of error: high
Each part is shown on its own. There is no combined stress score, and conditions vary by employer and role.
Full answer distributions
Contact with others
- No contact with others: 0.07%
- Occasional contact with others: 15.47%
- Contact with others about half the time: 0.05%
- Contact with others most of the time: 12.96%
- Constant contact with others: 71.44%
n = 20, Incumbent 08/2021
Dealing with the public
- Not important at all: 24.61%
- Fairly important: 0.14%
- Important: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Very important: 49.73%
- Extremely important: 0%
n = 19, Incumbent 08/2021
Teamwork
- Not important at all: 0%
- Fairly important: 0%
- Important: 15.52%
- Very important: 13.08%
- Extremely important: 71.4%
n = 20, Incumbent 08/2021
Freedom to make decisions
- No freedom: 0.28%
- Very little freedom: 0.05%
- Limited freedom: 15.45%
- Some freedom: 9.05%
- A lot of freedom: 75.17%
n = 20, Incumbent 08/2021
Time pressure
- Never: 0.11%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 12.8%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 12.75%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 21.8%
- Every day: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
n = 20, Incumbent 08/2021
Conflict situations
- Never: 14.9%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 50.46%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 12.8%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 21.84%
- Every day: 0%
n = 20, Incumbent 08/2021
Dealing with unpleasant or angry people
- Never: 27.72%
- Once a year or more but not every month: 37.71%
- Once a month or more but not every week: 12.86%
- Once a week or more but not every day: 21.71%
- Every day: 0%
n = 19, Incumbent 08/2021
Consequence of error
- Not serious at all: 0.13%
- Fairly serious: 14.87%
- Serious: 28.5%
- Very serious: suppressed by O*NET (low precision)
- Extremely serious: 24.13%
n = 18, Incumbent 08/2021
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O*NET-SOC 51-3093.00 · SOC 51-3093 (exact, high confidence) · dataset 2026.10.8