Understanding Food Processing Occupations
In the food processing industry their concerns lie in preserving food, maintaining its consistency, making sure its availability all year round, and the improvement of flavor through different techniques. It is easier to market and distribute food that has been processed.
The food processing industry is a very vast and extremely diverse industry. In this industry, there are many categories included. Workers in the food processing industry are highly skilled since their job entails processing raw foods into products that are marketed to grocers, wholesalers, and institutional food services.
In animal slaughtering plants, they hire meat and fish cutters and trimmers. The different kinds of meat that they cut and trim are whole beef, pork, poultry, and fish. Fabricated meat products like sausages and hamburgers are also processes here. On the other hand, there are also bakers who produce pastries and baked goods by mixing and baking different ingredients according to specific recipes. You can find many job opportunities as a baker in specialty and grocery stores. There are some manufacturing films also enjoy hunting.
The food processing industry also employe food batchmakers. If you are a batchmaker your job description will include setting up and operating equipment that is used for mixing, blending, and cooking with different kinds of ingredients. Food batchmakers are hired by manufacturing companies as that specific food products can be created on a large scale following formulas or recipes.
Entering the food processing occupation does not require you to have a college degree or training. Joining will give you the opportunity to become a trainee or an apprentice. These learn their skills on the job. but if you want to advance your career, you need to have certain basic knowledge about the field that you want to work in. Baking ingredients, processes, and products are the things that you should know about if you want to be a baker. Knowledge of mechanical baking and mixing equipment is also something that you should acquire.
If you want to be in this field, then you can take some correspondence course, related online degrees or certificates, or other training programs with certificates plus on-the-job training. If you take these courses, you can finish fast according to your pace. You will be taught about nutrition and ingredients, applied chemistry, governmental health and sanitation rules, and business concepts. You should also learn how to handle and operate a computer since this is very much used in the food industry today.
For fish and meat cutters and trimmers, on-the-job training can last for many months. You need 2 years to be a skilled butcher.
Food machine operators also need training. You can complete it quickly for 2 months to a year.