Prepare foods for cooking or serving
Little of this can be handed to software today.
This happens in the physical world, so software agents do not touch it. Automation here means robotics and machinery, which is a different market from the one mapped on this site, on a much slower clock.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Physical, manual and inspection work |
| Jobs that do it | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | None |
| O*NET activity | Handling and Moving Objects (4.A.3.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Perform food preparation and serving duties, such as carving meat, preparing flambe dishes, or serving wine and liquor.
- Wash, cut, and prepare foods designated for cooking.
- Clean, cut, and cook meat, fish, or poultry.
- Cool, package, label, and freeze foods for later consumption and provide instructions for reheating.
- Wash, peel, cut, and seed fruits and vegetables to prepare them for consumption.
- Perform food preparation tasks, such as making sandwiches, carving meats, making soups or salads, baking breads or desserts, and brewing coffee or tea.
- Wash, peel, and cut various foods, such as fruits and vegetables, to prepare for cooking or serving.
- Slice and pit fruit for garnishing drinks.
- Perform food preparation duties, such as preparing salads, appetizers, and cold dishes, portioning desserts, and brewing coffee.
- Clean or prepare various foods for cooking or serving.
- Peel, wash, trim, and cook vegetables and meats, and bake breads and pastries.
- Use manual or electric appliances to clean, peel, slice, and trim foods.
- Specialize in preparing fancy dishes or food for special diets.
- Plan and prepare food for parties, holiday meals, luncheons, special functions, and other social events.
- Travel with employers to vacation homes to provide meal preparation at those locations.
What we would actually use
Nothing in our landscape addresses this work. That is the honest answer rather than a padded list: this activity needs a person present, or a machine rather than a software agent.
Nothing on this site applies. Automation here is robotics and machinery, a different market on a much slower clock, and no software subscription moves it.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Prepare foods or beverages”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.