Job Check
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.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Clean and sanitize work areas, equipment, utensils, dishes, or silverware.Mostly human for now
- 02Assist cooks and kitchen staff with various tasks as needed, and provide cooks with needed items.Mostly human for now
- 03Take and record temperature of food and food storage areas, such as refrigerators and freezers.Mostly human for now
- 04Carry food supplies, equipment, and utensils to and from storage and work areas.Mostly human for now
- 05Remove trash and clean kitchen garbage containers.Mostly human for now
- 06Store food in designated containers and storage areas to prevent spoilage.Mostly human for now
- 07Weigh or measure ingredients.Mostly human for now
- 08Vacuum dining area and sweep and mop kitchen floor.Mostly human for now
- 09Inform supervisors when equipment is not working properly and when food and supplies are getting low, and order needed items.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Wash, peel, and cut various foods, such as fruits and vegetables, to prepare for cooking or serving.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
4%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 44% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 89% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Clean and sanitize work areas, equipment, utensils, dishes, or silverware.
- Assist cooks and kitchen staff with various tasks as needed, and provide cooks with needed items.
- Take and record temperature of food and food storage areas, such as refrigerators and freezers.