Food Preparation Worker Perform a variety of food preparation duties other than cooking, such as preparing cold foods and shellfish, slicing meat, and brewing coffee or tea.
Food Preparation Worker is Also Know as
In different settings, Food Preparation Worker is titled as
- Deli Clerk (Delicatessen Clerk)
- Diet Aide
- Dietary Aide
- Dietary Assistant
- Food Prep (Food Preparer)
- Food Service Aide
- Food Service Worker
- Nutrition Aide
- Pantry Cook
- Slicer
Education and Training of Food Preparation Worker
Food Preparation Worker is categorized in Job Zone One: Little or No Preparation Needed
Experience Required for Food Preparation Worker
Little or no previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, a person can become a waiter or waitress even if he/she has never worked before.
Education Required for Food Preparation Worker
Some of these occupations may require a high school diploma or GED certificate.
Degrees Related to Food Preparation Worker
Training Required for Food Preparation Worker
Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few days to a few months of training. Usually, an experienced worker could show you how to do the job.
Related Ocuupations
Some Ocuupations related to Food Preparation Worker in different industries are
- Cooks, Short Order
- Cooks, Restaurant
- Fast Food and Counter Workers
- Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria
- Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers
- Butchers and Meat Cutters
- Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
- Cooks, Fast Food
- Dishwashers
- Baristas
- Cooks, Private Household
- Chefs and Head Cooks
- Bakers
- First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers
- Food Service Managers
- Meat, Poultry, and Fish Cutters and Trimmers
- Waiters and Waitresses
- Food Batchmakers
- Graders and Sorters, Agricultural Products
- Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders
What Do Food Preparation Worker do?
- Store food in designated containers and storage areas to prevent spoilage.
- Package take-out foods or serve food to customers.
- Portion and wrap food, or place it directly on plates for service to patrons.
- Place food trays over food warmers for immediate service, or store them in refrigerated storage cabinets.
- Weigh or measure ingredients.
- Assist cooks and kitchen staff with various tasks as needed, and provide cooks with needed items.
- Receive and store food supplies, equipment, and utensils in refrigerators, cupboards, and other storage areas.
- Stock cupboards and refrigerators, and tend salad bars and buffet meals.
- Remove trash and clean kitchen garbage containers.
- Prepare and serve a variety of beverages, such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks.
- Carry food supplies, equipment, and utensils to and from storage and work areas.
- Make special dressings and sauces as condiments for sandwiches.
- Scrape leftovers from dishes into garbage containers.
- Use manual or electric appliances to clean, peel, slice, and trim foods.
- Stir and strain soups and sauces.
- Distribute food to waiters and waitresses to serve to customers.
- Keep records of the quantities of food used.
- Load dishes, glasses, and tableware into dishwashing machines.
- Butcher and clean fowl, fish, poultry, and shellfish to prepare for cooking or serving.
- Cut, slice or grind meat, poultry, and seafood to prepare for cooking.
- Add cutlery, napkins, food, and other items to trays on assembly lines in hospitals, cafeterias, airline kitchens, and similar establishments.
- Mix ingredients for green salads, molded fruit salads, vegetable salads, and pasta salads.
- Distribute menus to hospital patients, collect diet sheets, and deliver food trays and snacks to nursing units or directly to patients.
- Clean and sanitize work areas, equipment, utensils, dishes, or silverware.
- Prepare a variety of foods, such as meats, vegetables, or desserts, according to customers' orders or supervisors' instructions, following approved procedures.
- Take and record temperature of food and food storage areas, such as refrigerators and freezers.
- Wash, peel, and cut various foods, such as fruits and vegetables, to prepare for cooking or serving.
- Inform supervisors when equipment is not working properly and when food and supplies are getting low, and order needed items.
- Operate cash register, handle money, and give correct change.
- Vacuum dining area and sweep and mop kitchen floor.
- Assemble meal trays with foods in accordance with patients' diets.
Qualities of Good Food Preparation Worker
- Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
- Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
- Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
- Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
- Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
- Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
- Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
- Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
- Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
- Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
- Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
- Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
- Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
- Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
- Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
- Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
- Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
- Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
- Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
- Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
- Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
- Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
- Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
- Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
- Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
- Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
- Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
- Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
- Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
- Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
- Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
- Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
- Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
- Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
- Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
- Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
- Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
- Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
- Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
- Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
- Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
- Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
- Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
- Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
- Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
- Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
- Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
- Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
- Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
- Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.
- Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
Tools Used by Food Preparation Worker
- Belt conveyors
- Blenders
- Bread slicers
- Brick ovens
- Cappuccino machines
- Charbroilers
- Choppers
- Coffee brewing machines
- Coffee grinders
- Combination slicers/electronic portion scales
- Commercial cooking ovens
- Commercial dishwashers
- Commercial microwave ovens
- Commercial ranges
- Commercial stand mixers
- Cotton candy machines
- Dicers
- Dishwashing machines
- Dough mixers
- Drink dispensers
- Electric fryers
- Electric meat and cheese slicers
- Electric meat grinders
- Electronic chicken rotisseries
- Espresso machines
- Food processors
- Food scales
- Frozen custard machines
- Frozen drink machines
- Griddles
- Grills
- Ice machines
- Knives
- Measuring utensils
- Milkshake and smoothie machines
- Mixing machines
- Oriental ranges
- Personal computers
- Pizza ovens
- Point of sale POS interface scales
- Point of sale POS systems
- Popcorn machines
- Pressureless steamers
- Roasting equipment
- Snow cone machines
- Soda machines
- Soft-serve ice cream machines
- Steam tables
- Thermal label printing scales
- Toasters
- Tomato slicers
Technology Skills required for Food Preparation Worker
- Barrington Software CookenPro Commercial
- CBORD Foodservice Suite
- CBORD NetRecipe
- Culinary Software Services ChefTec
- EGS CALCMENU
- iPro
- Master Cook Deluxe Professional Cook
- Mealmaster Cookbook Wizard
- MicroBlast Recipe Wizard for Windows
- Microsoft Excel
- Microsoft Office software
- Quizlet
- Recipe software
- ValuSoft MasterCook
- YouTube