How To Become A Culinary Specialist: What It Is and Career Path

What is a culinary specialist and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a culinary specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $18.1 an hour? That's $37,641 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 15% and produce 23,600 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreCulinary SpecialistUS Average

Salary

2.9

Avg. Salary $37,641

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

9.1

Growth rate 15%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

6.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.92%

Asian 7.03%

Black or African American 11.72%

Hispanic or Latino 17.42%

Unknown 5.24%

White 57.67%

Gender

female 28.16%

male 71.84%

Age - 34

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 34

Stress level

9.1

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

5.0

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a culinary specialist

Explore culinary specialist education requirements

Most common culinary specialist degrees

High School Diploma

37.5 %

Associate

25.9 %

Bachelor's

23.5 %

Start to develop specific culinary specialist skills

Skills	Percentages
Kitchen Equipment	16.21%
Culinary	15.94%
Food Safety	12.14%
Patients	10.79%
Cleanliness	7.00%

Complete relevant culinary specialist training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New culinary specialists learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a culinary specialist based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real culinary specialist resumes.

Gain additional culinary specialist certifications

Culinary specialist certifications can show employers you have a baseline of knowledge expected for the position. Certifications can also make you a more competitive candidate. Even if employers don't require a specific culinary specialist certification, having one may help you stand out relative to other applicants.

The most common certifications for culinary specialists include Certified Culinary Administrator (CCA) and Certified Food Manager (CFM).

More About Certifications

Research culinary specialist duties and responsibilities

Manage and lead a HACCP plan for the restaurant.
Manage user securities, roles, database backups, restore, fail-over management for SQL cluster.
Help maintain haccp records, and all sanitation rules.
Set up the batter cart, fryers, and chicken holding cabinet and collect all necessary small wares.

Prepare your culinary specialist resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your culinary specialist resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a culinary specialist resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable culinary specialist resume templates

Build a professional culinary specialist resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your culinary specialist resume.