Also called: Food Engineer, Process Engineer (Food)
Designs and improves the equipment and processes that cook, cool, package and preserve food safely at huge scale.
Your plant wants to make 30% more yogurt without building a new building. You map the flow from milk tanks to cups, find the pasteurizer is the bottleneck, and design an upgrade. Then you work with sanitation crews to make sure the new equipment can be cleaned perfectly.
Estimate.
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, agricultural, chemical or mechanical engineering.
Ways in: 4-year college. Training cost: $15k – $60k.
Majors to look at: Food Engineering, Agricultural & Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering.
Growing faster than average. Food manufacturing is projected to keep growing.
Low risk in 5 years, medium in 10. AI helps model cooking, cooling and line efficiency; designing safe food systems and fixing plant problems stay human.
Classes: AP Chemistry, AP Physics, AP Calculus.
Official data: O*NET occupation 17-2199.
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.