And that is just the beginning. After food is grown and processed, food science and technology find us better, healthier ways of using foods. From advising us on the feeding of a family and the development of the food pyramid, to ensuring the nutritional needs of patients in a hospital or students eating in school cafeterias, scientists and technicians play a role every step of the way.
Food science helps meet the country's and the world's demands for healthy, good tasting, and adequate diets. Food science starts with agriculture, which is covered in Chapter 5 of this book. It involves the sciences of biology, chemistry, microbiology, physics, and materials.
Whether your concern is developing protein sources for countries short on meat and dairy supplies or fat substitutes for a dieting population, opportunities with private industry, the federal and state governments, and university research facilities exist for those interested in researching better food sources and delivering healthier food to tables around the world.
People are interested in healthier diets that are also available to them in more convenient ways. At the same time, they are interested in broadening their palates with new types of foods. This puts increasingly complex demands on science and technology to meet consumer needs and desires. Aside from its intrinsic interest and appeal-after all who doesn't love food-the employment outlook is good for science technicians interested in careers in foods.
CAREERS AVAILABLE IN FOOD SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND SERVICES
Food science technologist careers are available at every step of the foods process, from the processing of food from the second it is harvested to the moment it is eaten. The steps in the process are outlined as follows: harvesting; shipping; processing into food; packaging; transportation; processing at restaurants, institutions, or home; and fulfilling dietary needs.
Ensuring a healthy population requires that the quality of food sources be maintained through all the steps involved from taking food from the farm to the home or restaurant. Quality involves preserving the nutritional values as well as flavor and appearance of food. It encompasses a variety of industries from food processing to transportation, packaging, and dietetics.
THE FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY
By type of Food
Food processing is taking the raw food materials and converting them to a consumable product for sale to stores, wholesalers, restaurants, or homes. Food processing takes food from the farm to the table. The food processing industry is divided into segments based on the type of food product. They include meat products, preserved fruits and vegetables, bakery, miscellaneous, beverages, grain and mill products, fats and oils, dairy products, and sugar and confectionery products.
In 1992, 1.7 million workers were employed in food processing. The meat product industry accounted for about 25 percent of workers, approximately 434,000 jobs. Bakery and preserving fruits and vegetables together accounted for another 25 percent. Although the meat, fruits and vegetables, and miscellaneous segments of the industry are expected to grow, all others are expected to decline. The decline in workers in this industry is expected to be about 0.4 percent from 1992-2005.
By Job Type
Workers in the food processing industry are divided into categories by type of job process. Major categories are operators, fabricators, and laborers; precision production, craft, and repair; administrative support, including clerical; executive, administrative, and managerial; marketing and sales; service; and other occupations.
Growth is expected in operators, fabricators, and laborers (1.2 percent); executive, administrative, and managerial, (1.4 percent); and other occupations (14.7 percent). Each of these segments contains jobs for the science technician. The industrial production manager category is included in the executive, administrative, and managerial segment. This category would include technicians working on supervisory capacities on production lines or in packaging laboratories and testing facilities. These positions account for the growth in that segment. They are expected to increase by 2 percent.
Many of the equipment operating jobs of the operator, fabricator, and laborer segment are filled by technicians. The equipment operating positions are a mixed bag of employment growth potential. When looking at overall growth, however, it is expected that within this segment, the decreasing positions will be primarily unskilled positions. The increasing positions would be expected to be skilled positions operating the more complex machinery.
The segment of the industry labeled "other occupations" includes many of the computer, scientific, and engineering jobs. Here technicians working as assistants in the production design process with industrial and mechanical engineers, in the food research process with food and chemical scientists, or in the packaging process developing more effective, environmentally friendly packaging are offered high paying opportunities with good working conditions.
Most technician jobs are included in the precision production, craft, and repair category. This category accounts for about one fifth (20.6 percent) or 341,000 of workers in food processing. This category includes:
The overall employment opportunities available in this category are expected to decline by 3 percent between 1992 and 2005. Most of this decline is in the butcher and meat cutters occupation (14.7 percent) and with inspectors, graders, and testers (19.7 percent).
Maintenance repairer positions are expected to increase by 1.3 percent. Many technician jobs would be part of this increase.
Although the overall picture for the food processing industry depicts a slight decline in employment opportunities for 1992 to 2005, it is important to keep in mind the pattern of decline. Like many industries food processing is experiencing primarily a decline in unskilled labor positions. This is because of the increasing reliance on automation. Increased reliance on sophisticated machinery increases the number of skilled positions required in an industry. Increased reliance on science and technology nearly always means an increase in technician positions.
As long as scientific research to improve the quality of our food production, processing, and packaging continues, we can expect growth in the numbers of technical workers needed to carry out the process of improvement. As long as Americans expect increasingly convenient foods-ready to eat or ready to heat, single-serving packs, and so forth-the scientists' and science technicians' jobs will be increasingly important.
Working Conditions in Food Processing
The working conditions in food processing vary widely. Although many production jobs may be physically demanding because of heavy lifting or use of dangerous equipment, technicians' jobs are much less physically demanding.
The environmental conditions of the job vary depending on the food source processed. Whereas working in a bakery or canning facility may mean hot temperatures, working in a dairy or meat production facility may mean cool temperatures. Some workers will work shifts if a facility is open around the clock or sixteen hours a day. Other facilities may not be open year-round if their food product is seasonal. Here workers must find alternate work in off seasons, or the company must find alternate products.
Food Testing Conditions
Food processing companies keep a close eye on the quality of the foods that they process and produce. A variety of test technicians can be employed in this process.
Field inspectors: Some inspectors are employed by the government and some by private industry. Companies that produce food inspect the raw food materials before they buy them. They are trained and qualified to look not only for safe foods, but also for those that would make good tasting foods. Government inspectors are interested primarily in meats, poultry and their byproducts to ensure a safe food supply. These inspectors work in the field at the farm or ranch, ensuring that the produce, animals, and facilities meet required standards. As food is processed it is tested repeatedly. We will review each phase of testing here.
Food technicians help food scientists, dieticians, and food technologists develop new recipes and food products. They may help in the development of new processing techniques developing foods with longer shelf lives or greater ease of use. They may help in the development of specialized food products, such as low fat or low sugar products, or in the development of new foods, such as the "no fat" fat substitute. Technicians help in improving the quality of foods, such as the flavor, texture, color, or nutritional value. Food technicians may specialize in one aspect of food processing, such as research and development, testing, packaging, production, or quality control. They also might specialize in a type of food, depending upon their employer, such as grains, fruits or vegetables, meats, dairy, and so forth. Jobs in several of the specialty areas are discussed below.
Laboratory test technicians: As new foods and methods of processing them are researched and developed, each new method or recipe undergoes countless tests. Lab test technicians would perform chemical analyses on foods to test their nutritional quality. Technicians would set up the test conditions, observe and record results, and keep the laboratory equipment in good order. Technicians might prepare foods using two or three different recipes and compare the nutritional content of each prepared product. They might compare a recipe that was processed in two different ways or foods that were stored under different conditions or kept in different packages.
In addition to comparing nutritional values, test technicians compare changes in the taste, appearance, or smell of foods, too.
Packaging technicians: BANG! POP! SQUISH! Packaging technicians put food packages through rigorous tests to make sure that they can stand up to the knockabout conditions of transportation and storage. All packaging has to pass tests that ensure both the quality and safety of food and that it can withstand usage. Sophisticated machinery drops packages from varying heights. It presses on stacks of boxes exerting hundreds of pounds of pressure to see if they withstand being stacked high in warehouses or on trucks. Some machines jiggle and jolt packages to see if they chip, crack, or break. Even food pouches are squeezed by machines to see if they pop. Although it is an unusual type of laboratory, packaging technicians run tests and observe and record the results of their experiments as any test technician would. Some packaging technicians focus on the package design and materials; other technician jobs focus on how safe and palatable the package keeps the foods stored in it.
Production technician and quality control technicians have important jobs in food processing. Production or industrial technicians help industrial engineers design and monitor the manufacture of foods, guaranteeing that food is handled safely and cost effectively at each step of the production process. Quality assurance and quality control technicians test equipment and food samples to ensure that safety and quality standards are met.
Educational Qualifications
Many of the jobs in food production are open to workers with a high school diploma. These jobs require little skill or skills that can be learned quickly on the job.
Specialized training is required for jobs as quality control workers, inspectors, testers, and science technicians. An associate's degree is most often required for these jobs, although some positions may be obtained through years of experience in food production. With superior performance, workers may also advance to supervisory positions in the food manufacturing line.
FOOD SERVICES
Food services are closely associated with the hospitality industry as well as with institutional food services in hospitals, schools, and other private facilities. Feeding large groups over extended periods of time is not just hospitality, but food science. Balancing the needs of nutrition, sanitation, storage, and volume with cost effectiveness and palatability is the meeting of the principles of food as science and food as art.
A variety of technician jobs in food services are available. The specifics of each job differ with each setting, whether an institutional or hospitality setting. Below is a general job description for a dietetic technician.
Dietetic technicians (from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles) provide services in assigned areas of food service management and dietary consultation under the supervision of a dietician. They plan menus based on established guidelines, standardize recipes and test new products for use in facilities, supervise food production and service, and obtain and evaluate dietary histories of individuals to plan nutritional programs. Dietetic technicians also guide individuals and families in food selection, preparation, and menu planning, based upon nutritional needs.
The developmental nature of the food services highlights the role of continuing education and relatedness of programs with the community college and/or four-year college and university offerings. The certification program above qualifies the individual for entry-level positions in food services. This gets the individual into an income-earning track quickly. At the same time it opens the door for future advancement through education and job experience.
Food service management associate degree programs prepare you for middle-level management jobs. This is a particularly good career path for those in entry-level positions or those who have graduated from the certificate program. The Food Service Management Associates in Science Degree program is twenty courses of sixty to sixty-two credits built onto, or in continuation of the certificate. The combination of experience and education can make advancement more rapid.
Additional advancement in this Held can be pursued through the dietetics programs. At the technician level, these programs involve the sciences to an even larger degree. Because there are national guidelines for registered dietetics technicians, developed by the Dietetics Managers Association, programs will be similar to help their graduates pass the examination to become a registered dietary technician.
