AI exposure: Food Preparation Workers
Perform a variety of food preparation duties other than cooking, such as preparing cold foods and shellfish, slicing meat, and brewing coffee or tea.
Reading this score
computedFood Preparation Workers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 6.7% of weighted task load, rank 853 of 923. 89.5% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 31 tasks it averages 2.76 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Keep records of the quantities of food used, at 73.3%. The least is Butcher and clean fowl, fish, poultry, and shellfish to prepare for cooking or serving, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within food preparation and serving occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.2% across the group's 16 roles, with 12 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 31 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 1 assisted and 27 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.47 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.76 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.47 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.53 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.74 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.60 | 0-3 |
Task by task
31 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Keep records of the quantities of food used. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 3.96 | exposed |
| Inform supervisors when equipment is not working properly and when food and supplies are getting low, and order needed items. | 66.7% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 4.33 | exposed |
| Operate cash register, handle money, and give correct change. | 41.7% | 20.8% | 37.5% | 4.40 | exposed |
| Take and record temperature of food and food storage areas, such as refrigerators and freezers. | 23.3% | 26.7% | 50.0% | 4.55 | assisted |
| Distribute food to waiters and waitresses to serve to customers. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 4.57 | untouched |
| Distribute menus to hospital patients, collect diet sheets, and deliver food trays and snacks to nursing units or directly to patients. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.25 | untouched |
| Clean and sanitize work areas, equipment, utensils, dishes, or silverware. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.66 | untouched |
| Assist cooks and kitchen staff with various tasks as needed, and provide cooks with needed items. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.62 | untouched |
| Carry food supplies, equipment, and utensils to and from storage and work areas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.46 | untouched |
| Remove trash and clean kitchen garbage containers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.43 | untouched |
| Store food in designated containers and storage areas to prevent spoilage. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.42 | untouched |
| Weigh or measure ingredients. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.41 | untouched |
| Vacuum dining area and sweep and mop kitchen floor. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.35 | untouched |
| Wash, peel, and cut various foods, such as fruits and vegetables, to prepare for cooking or serving. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Prepare a variety of foods, such as meats, vegetables, or desserts, according to customers' orders or supervisors' instructions, following approved procedures. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.31 | untouched |
| Assemble meal trays with foods in accordance with patients' diets. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.22 | untouched |
| Stock cupboards and refrigerators, and tend salad bars and buffet meals. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.20 | untouched |
| Use manual or electric appliances to clean, peel, slice, and trim foods. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.18 | untouched |
| Load dishes, glasses, and tableware into dishwashing machines. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Portion and wrap food, or place it directly on plates for service to patrons. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Add cutlery, napkins, food, and other items to trays on assembly lines in hospitals, cafeterias, airline kitchens, and similar establishments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.11 | untouched |
| Place food trays over food warmers for immediate service, or store them in refrigerated storage cabinets. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Prepare and serve a variety of beverages, such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Mix ingredients for green salads, molded fruit salads, vegetable salads, and pasta salads. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
| Receive and store food supplies, equipment, and utensils in refrigerators, cupboards, and other storage areas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.98 | untouched |
| Stir and strain soups and sauces. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.97 | untouched |
| Make special dressings and sauces as condiments for sandwiches. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.94 | untouched |
| Scrape leftovers from dishes into garbage containers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.69 | untouched |
| Package take-out foods or serve food to customers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.23 | untouched |
| Cut, slice or grind meat, poultry, and seafood to prepare for cooking. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.13 | untouched |
| Butcher and clean fowl, fish, poultry, and shellfish to prepare for cooking or serving. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.