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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.

What you’d do

  • Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses.
  • Read work orders, recipes, or formulas to determine cooking times and temperatures, and ingredient specifications.
  • Observe gauges, dials, and product characteristics, and adjust controls to maintain appropriate temperature, pressure, and flow of ingredients.
  • Measure or weigh ingredients, using scales or measuring containers.
  • Tend or operate and control equipment, such as kettles, cookers, vats and tanks, and boilers, to cook ingredients or prepare products for further processing.
  • Record production and test data, such as processing steps, temperature and steam readings, cooking time, batches processed, and test results.
  • Set temperature, pressure, and time controls, and start conveyers, machines, or pumps.
  • Remove cooked material or products from equipment.

Skills that matter

  • Operations Monitoring
  • Monitoring
  • Operation and Control
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Active Listening
  • Critical Thinking

How to get there

Little to some preparation: usually a high school diploma or GED, though some jobs do not need one

Also called

  • Fryer Operator
  • Kettle Fry Cook Operator
  • Machine Operator
  • Retort Operator
  • Cooker Operator
  • Food Production Worker

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