Also called: Food Technologist, Product Developer
Uses chemistry, biology, and engineering to develop, preserve, and improve foods.
You might work on making a snack crunchier, extending a sauce's shelf life, or replacing an artificial color with a natural one. Days mix lab experiments, pilot-plant runs, and taste tests. Every packaged food in a grocery store was shaped by food scientists.
Approximate: anchored on Bureau of Labor Statistics data for a broader job group.
Bachelor's degree (4-year), about 4 years after high school. Bachelor's in food science; master's or PhD for research roles.
Ways in: 4-year college, Graduate school. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Food Science, Chemistry, Biology, Nutrition.
Growing faster than average (about 6% over 10 years).
Medium risk for 10 years. AI models predict formulas and shelf life, cutting junior lab work; testing, safety and scale-up still need scientists.
Classes: Chemistry, Biology, AP Calculus or Statistics.
Official data: O*NET occupation 19-1012.
Career Universe is an early version. Pay, training and AI-risk figures are estimates to start your own research, not verified facts. The research was written with AI research assistants, checked by validation scripts and spot-checked by hand. Check anything important with schools, employers and official sources. How the numbers work.