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Food Scientists and Technologists

  • Bright Outlook
  • Rapid Growth

Use chemistry, microbiology, engineering, and other sciences to study the principles underlying the processing and deterioration of foods; analyze food content to determine levels of vitamins, fat, sugar, and protein; discover new food sources; research ways to make processed foods safe, palatable, and healthful; and apply food science knowledge to determine best ways to process, package, preserve, store, and distribute food.

What you’d do

  • Inspect food processing areas to ensure compliance with government regulations and standards for sanitation, safety, quality, and waste management.
  • Check raw ingredients for maturity or stability for processing, and finished products for safety, quality, and nutritional value.
  • Study methods to improve aspects of foods, such as chemical composition, flavor, color, texture, nutritional value, and convenience.
  • Develop food standards and production specifications, safety and sanitary regulations, and waste management and water supply specifications.
  • Stay up to date on new regulations and current events regarding food science by reviewing scientific literature.
  • Study the structure and composition of food or the changes foods undergo in storage and processing.
  • Confer with process engineers, plant operators, flavor experts, and packaging and marketing specialists to resolve problems in product development.
  • Test new products for flavor, texture, color, nutritional content, and adherence to government and industry standards.

Skills that matter

  • Active Learning
  • Critical Thinking
  • Reading Comprehension
  • Active Listening
  • Complex Problem Solving
  • Judgment and Decision Making

How to get there

Considerable preparation: most need a four-year bachelor's degree

Also called

  • Food and Drug Research Scientist
  • Food Scientist
  • Food Technologist
  • Research Chef
  • Corporate Food Scientist
  • Food Engineer

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