8 Culinary Careers Outside of the Kitchen (with Salary Info)

You love food and drink and the joy and camaraderie of a good meal. You enjoy it enough that you are thinking about a culinary career, but you’re not sure you want to spend your life behind the stove or in a restaurant dining room. You’re in luck, because there are many food-related jobs available, and they are more diverse and exciting than ever before. They don’t all require cooking (or even being near a restaurant!)—and many are at the forefront of technology and innovation.

Part of what’s so great about the culinary and hospitality industry is that, if you’re skilled and passionate, you can apply your skills in many different ways. If you’ve spent years working as a trained chef, you’re not boxed into a defined role; instead, you’ve built the experience, confidence, and connections to explore your own path. Whether you love to serve people or want to get paid to sip, savor, concoct, and analyze all things food, there’s a career waiting for you.

So, if you want to know about culinary careers outside the kitchen, here are a few of the coolest, most unique jobs in food that CIA graduates hold, and some you may not have even known existed.

Catering Director

If you enjoy serving perfectly crafted meals at different locations, and managing every detail from menu planning to staffing and logistics, then consider a career as a catering director. As the director, you’ll train and supervise staff, book events, and work with the chef to design menus for all sorts of events. If you’re a people person with an eye for detail and the ability to problem-solve on the fly, then this can be a well-paid and exciting culinary career outside the kitchen.

“We facilitate everything from meals that are made on site from scratch every day by an in-house team to backstage riders. If they need a special kind of water, if they need green M&Ms, we are the ones that make that happen backstage. So it’s very exciting because it’s always something new every day and it’s continuously growing as well.” 

— Heather Feher ’09, National Director of Backstage Catering at Live Nation®

• Estimated Median Salary: $113,000.
• Work Environment: Catering directors work in hotels, event venues, or catering companies, often in fast-paced, deadline-driven settings that combine office planning with on-site coordination.
• Essential Skills: Menu planning, logistics, budgeting, staff supervision, and client relations; strong leadership and organizational skills are key.
• Qualifications: Degrees in Culinary Arts or Hospitality Management are preferred, as is experience in catering operations or large-scale foodservice.

Event Planner

Want even more oversight over celebrations and events? Event planners, also called event coordinators and event specialists, are tasked with organizing all the details for events. Whether it’s for corporate conferences or weddings, you handle everything from start to finish, from the budgeting and venue selection to the marketing, execution, and catering. 

It’s a position that’s not quite as food-related as other jobs on this list, but it’s a hospitality career where the leadership and organizational skills you learn in the kitchen will always be applicable. 

• Estimated Median Salary: $72,000.
• Work Environment: Event planners operate in a variety of venues, from hotels and conference centers to outdoor or private settings, balancing client meetings, vendor coordination, and on-site execution.
• Essential Skills: Exceptional organization, communication, budgeting, and problem-solving; creativity and flexibility under pressure.
• Qualifications: A background in hospitality management, event planning, or communications is common; experience in planning events is helpful, as are industry certifications such as Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) or Certified Special Events Professional (CSEP).

Entrepreneur

If you’re an aspiring business owner and food lover, consider the possibility of starting your own business as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship can be one of the most challenging career paths you can pursue, requiring that you put out an excellent product or service and be skilled in management, organization, marketing, and finance. It can be a big risk, but having your own business can also be one of the most rewarding careers possible. 

Just ask previous CIA alumni, such as:

• Victoria Androsz ’22, a Baking and Pastry Arts and Food Business Management major who is now the current owner of Vici Design in New York City
• Scott Martley ’21, who graduated from the master’s in Food Business to launch Blue Finch Bakery
• Jae Jung ’10, whose innovative Korean-Cajun fusion restaurant and catering service, KJUN, would receive critical acclaim from The New Yorker magazine, Bloomberg, and Eater
• Roy Choi ’98, who launched the mobile culinary business Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go and a line of sauces, seasonings, and spicy ramen
• Duff Goldman ’98, who earned fame as a media personality and owner of Charm City Cakes

• Estimated median salary: $131,000.
• Work Environment: An entrepreneur’s environment is as varied as their business, and can include a restaurant, food truck, packaged product, or culinary startup. Food entrepreneurs have to balance the hands-on work of creating their products, but also the business side of finances, marketing, and management.
• Essential Skills: Business strategy, financial planning, branding, marketing, and culinary innovation; resilience and adaptability are essential.
• Qualifications: A bachelor’s degree in Food Business Management; obtaining a master’s degree in Food Business can help you further hone your business skills and build your professional network; a focus on building business, financial, and marketing skills is crucial, and real-world food industry experience is invaluable.

Food Sourcing Specialist

Even before the concept of farm-to-table started trending on social media, the process of how we get our food has been essential to how chefs create delicious and nutritious meals. If you’re passionate about ensuring sustainable food systems, supporting local communities, and providing the freshest and highest-quality ingredients to kitchens, then you could work as a food sourcing specialist. You’ll build relationships with suppliers and vendors to ensure they’re able to deliver their products in a manner that’s safe, efficient, and environmentally conscious. 

• Estimated Median Salary: $89,000.
• Work Environment: Food sourcing specialists often work for restaurants, wholesalers, retailers, or sustainable food organizations, coordinating with farmers, producers, and distributors to ensure quality and ethical sourcing.
• Essential Skills: Knowledge of agricultural systems, negotiation, logistics, and sustainability practices; strong analytical and relationship-building abilities.
• Qualifications: A concentration in Farm-to-Table practices and/or a degree in Applied Food Studies, Food Systems, or Agriculture is important, while an advanced degree in Sustainable Food Systems can be advantageous and also applicable to related careers, such as food policy director or program manager.

Food Writer

If you enjoy talking about your dishes as much as you do creating them, then perhaps your true calling is a food writer. Food writers combine their culinary expertise with their passion for storytelling, creating articles, books, blogs, videos, and other content to inform and entertain about food trends, cuisines, traditions, and culture. 

• Jesse Szewczyk ’14 saw his career evolve from the kitchen to food media, becoming a renowned writer, editor, and food stylist who has contributed to The New York Times, Food Network, Epicurious, Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, and more.
• Scott Jones ’98 used his talents to author the Southern Living Wine Guide and Journal and helped create the book 1001 Ways to Cook Southern before starting his own culinary media company,
  JONES IS THIRSTY.
• Julia Collin Davison ’96 leveraged her associate degree in Culinary Arts with her previous experience in psychology and philosophy to move up from a test chef at Cook’s Illustrated magazine to being an on-air test chef for America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country, which led to the release of her own series of highly successful cookbooks.
• Pamela Parseghian ’81 turned her love of travel and food into a position as executive food editor at Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN) before becoming program coordinator for the Health Promotion Council, PHMC in Philadelphia, PA.

• Estimated Median Salary: $102,000.
• Work Environment: Food writers can work independently at home or in an office for publications, websites, or media outlets. Their work is a mix of research, recipe testing, and storytelling from kitchens, restaurants, or home offices.
• Essential Skills: Excellent writing, editing, and storytelling; deep culinary knowledge and curiosity; ability to translate flavor and experience into engaging content.
• Qualifications: As a food writer, you’ll need a background in journalism or communications balanced with experience or a degree in the culinary arts; if you’re applying for a writing or editing position, be sure to build up a strong professional writing portfolio as well as firsthand culinary experience.

Food Stylist

You can make good food, but can you make food look good? As a food stylist, you’ll craft dishes that are as good to look at as they are to eat. A skilled food stylist understands how to make food look delicious under different lighting conditions and environments, providing images for photography, film, commercials, or cookbooks. 

Just ask CIA grad Kathryn Conrad ’99, a freelance food stylist and recipe developer whose work has appeared in Bon Appétit, Condé Nast Travel, and Pampered Chef. Or, if TV is more your thing, follow in the footsteps of Kersti Bowser ’01 and Maureen Petrosky ’99, both of whom built successful careers at Food Network starting as food stylists.

• Estimated Median Salary: $82,000.
• Work Environment: Food stylists collaborate with photographers, editors, and creative teams in studios, kitchens, or on film sets, preparing dishes for print, advertising, or digital media.
• Essential Skills: Visual design, plating, color coordination, and deep culinary technique to keep food camera-ready; creativity and patience are essential.
• Qualifications: Culinary or pastry training or experience as a chef is helpful, as is photography or visual arts coursework; if possible, try to gain experience assisting professional stylists before leading shoots.

Artisan Cheesemaker

When you think of an artisan cheesemaker’s life, you might imagine bleating goats, calm country days, homemade wine, and an enviable supply of chèvre. The reality can be more like a scientific laboratory, though the connection between conscientious farming, healthy milk, and excellent cheese is inspiring for any chef looking for a creative job outside the kitchen.

For generations, artisan cheesemaking was associated with Europe, but over the past few decades, American artisanal cheesemaking has increased in popularity. In truth, what makes cheesemaking in the USA so exciting is how it’s separated from the centuries of European tradition, enabling modern cheesemakers to explore innovations in techniques, flavor, and sustainability. That creative drive is what pushed CIA grad Samuel Kennedy ’06 to be a five-time award-winning cheesemaker for The Farm at Doe Run in Pennsylvania.

• Estimated Median Salary: $61,000.
• Work Environments: Cheesemakers work in creameries, dairies, or small farm operations, often balancing hands-on production with aging, quality control, and sanitation in cool, climate-controlled environments.
• Essential Skills: Strong understanding of fermentation, microbiology, and dairy handling; precision, patience, and sensory awareness to monitor texture, aroma, and flavor.
• Qualifications:Culinary arts or culinary science training; apprenticeships or farm-based internships offer valuable practical experience in specialized cheesemaking or dairy production.

Brewmaster

Being a brewmaster requires a vast knowledge of everything beer-related, and in CIA’s Art and Science of Brewing class, students work in a real brewery right on campus! As a brewmaster, you will be in charge of tailoring the ideas behind every beer a brewery creates. You will start with an enormous foundational knowledge from which you’ll innovate, experiment, and track trends. CIA grad Jared Rouben ’06 found his calling at Chicago’s Moody Tongue Brewing. With the popularity of microbreweries across the country, there are many positions available at breweries of all sizes, and you’ll be getting paid to sip beer all day!

• Estimated Median Salary: $134,000.
• Work Environment: Brewmasters oversee beer production in breweries, microbreweries, or brewpubs, managing brewing schedules, ingredient sourcing, and fermentation systems in both lab and industrial settings.
• Essential Skills: A deep knowledge of brewing science, chemistry, and equipment; creativity in recipe design; strong management and quality control abilities.
• Qualifications: A culinary degree with a Beverage Production concentration or other formal brewing or fermentation science programs; hands-on experience in professional breweries is essential, and a background in chemistry, biology, or culinary fermentation can be extremely helpful.

Four Unique Culinary Careers You May Not Have Heard Of

If you’re interested in exploring more unique food-related jobs, there are plenty of exciting opportunities outside of the kitchen. Here are four careers you may not have heard of, all with ties to CIA students and alumni. 

Apiarist Specialist

An apiarist farms bees and harvests honey. As long as you don’t have life-threatening allergies, it is not a dangerous job. Additionally, being a beekeeper can be a profitable career if done on a large scale. Some apiarists manage millions of bees at a time and harvest more honey than you can imagine. The primary responsibility is to keep the bees healthy. In fact, as a CIA student, you can get practice tending bees at the on-campus apiary as part of the Applied Food Studies major.

• Estimated Median Salary: $90,000.
• Essential Skills: Strong understanding of bee biology, hive management, and pollination cycles. You’ll need a working knowledge of honey extraction and processing and strong skills in recordkeeping, observation, and problem-solving.
• Qualifications: Many apiary specialists learn through agricultural or environmental science programs, beekeeping apprenticeships, or applied food courses; backgrounds in biology, ecology, or sustainable agriculture are valuable, and experience managing hives is essential for professional or commercial operations.

Forager

When it comes to the local food movement, foraging is one of the purest ways to practice sustainable harvesting. CIA grad Jeremy Faber ’96 is a professional forager who spends his time wandering the woods, finding numerous varieties of edible mushrooms and other fresh ingredients that grow in the wild to sell to client restaurants and farmers’ markets. It’s no office job; he spends the majority of his time out in the field—and forest.

• Estimated Median Salary: $111,000.
• Essential Skills: Extensive knowledge of wild plants, fungi, and natural ecosystems, including the ability to identify edible, medicinal, and toxic species. Building strong relationships with chefs, suppliers, or local markets is essential, as is curiosity, patience, and safety awareness.
• Qualifications: Most foragers gain expertise through hands-on field experience and mentorship from experts in botany or mycology. Courses in plant identification, ecology, or environmental science provide a scientific foundation. Food safety certifications and sustainable sourcing knowledge can enhance credibility and sustainability.

“Our passion for wild foods is what inspires us to supply the best of nature’s bounty, from mushrooms to wild greens. We believe in the culinary and medicinal benefits of everything we offer. Our products are harvested throughout the Pacific Northwest, from northern California to southern British Columbia, from the Pacific Ocean to the continental divide.”

—Jeremy Faber ’96
Founder of Foraged and Found Edibles

Mustard Sommelier

Yes, that’s a thing. And CIA grad Brandon Collins ’01 is the official North American Mustard Sommelier for French mustard company Maille. His job includes educating both chefs and consumers about various kinds of mustard and which foods pair best with which product. My compliments to the condiment!

• Estimated Median Salary: $114,000.
• Essential Skills: Deep sensory and technical understanding of mustard varieties, flavor profiles, and ingredient composition; a refined palate for tasting and pairing; communication and presentation skills for educating consumers or culinary professionals.
• Qualifications: Culinary arts education or professional tasting certifications provide useful sensory analysis skills; as an extremely specialized role, training for this role often comes through the Maille Mustard Sommelier program or equivalent partnerships.

Trendologist/Culinary Consultant

Love staying on top of the next big thing? As a trendologist, you will spend most of your time performing market research: reading blogs, watching food shows, reading food magazines, and, of course, eating a lot of delicious food. You will become the expert on what people want, what’s trending, and what the next hot food craze will be. You’ll advise clients on how to structure their menu and which items to feature.

Elizabeth Moskow is not only a CIA faculty member, she’s also an internationally recognized food futurist, trendologist, and culinary innovator, renowned for shaping how the world understands the future of food.

As founder of Bread & Circus consultancy, she partners with industry leaders to translate emerging technologies, sustainability imperatives, and scientific advances into actionable strategies that drive growth and transformation.

• Estimated Median Salary: $82,000.
• Essential Skills: Strong research, data analysis, and forecasting abilities; an understanding of consumer behavior, food culture, and market dynamics; digital literacy for monitoring social and online trends and clear communication for translating data into strategic insights.
• Qualifications: Typically requires a degree in marketing, business, data analytics, or food studies, often paired with industry experience in product development or branding; many trend analysts work within consulting firms, food manufacturers, or media organizations, where both analytical and creative thinking are essential.

There are plenty more exciting food-related job opportunities out there. Explore more CIA alumni and their career paths after graduation on our Alumni Bios page.   

Salary figures sourced from Glassdoor in November 2025.

Five Tips for Growing a Career in Food Outside of the Kitchen

We’ve just scratched the surface of culinary careers that don’t require you to commit to the kitchen. You could also be a beverage director, culinary educator, research and development specialist, winery manager/director, or one of literally hundreds of culinary-related job titles. No matter which industry or career path you choose, here are some helpful tips to help your culinary journey:

1. Follow Your Passions
   The first step in finding your career is thinking about the activities you’re passionate about, which will point you to other industries that pair well with your love of food.
   

“No one in my family drank wine… The [CIA] wine class with Steven Kolpan was a revelation to me. It opened my eyes to a completely new world. I went to all the tutoring sessions to learn as much as I could about wine, and I was fortunate to get a scholarship to accompany Professor Kolpan to Italy.”

—Carlton McCoy ’06
Master Sommelier, President/CEO, Heitz Cellar; Co-Host of Netflix’s Next Gen Chef.

2. Leverage the Power of Connections
   Networking is one of the strongest tools in any industry, and it’s especially true for a culinary career. Leveraging resources such as CIA’s lifetime career services and the CIA alumni network connects you to thousands of industry professionals across restaurants, R&D labs, media, and hospitality. Alumni connections often lead to internships, collaborations, and long-term mentorship.
   
3. Take Advantage of Career Fairs and Internships
   Building experience is essential, as much for your own credibility as to determine if a specific role or career path is right for you. Events such as CIA’s career fairs bring top employers directly to you, providing face-to-face access to industry leaders. Combined with the CIA’s extensive internship opportunities, you can build invaluable insights into real-world operations—and often full-time job offers before graduation.
   
4. Continue Growing with Master’s Degrees
   Specialized knowledge is crucial for qualifying for certain positions. As your career evolves, advanced education can elevate you from a skilled practitioner to a leader or innovator. Master’s programs in areas like food business and sustainable food systems—such as the online master’s programs at CIA—can help you deepen your expertise, build strategic thinking, and expand your career opportunities on a global scale.
   
5. Stay Curious and Keep Learning
   What’s possible in the culinary world is constantly changing. Your dream career might not even exist yet, so your success really depends on your adaptability and commitment to lifelong learning. Whether mastering new technologies, exploring sustainability, or blending culinary arts with science or business, staying open to growth will keep your career dynamic and rewarding, no matter where it is
   

“At CIA there are so many cool clubs and experiences you can take advantage of. If something interests you, all you have to do is put a little effort into it. If you find something you’re passionate about you can make it happen. The resources are all there.”

—Andrea Morris ’11
Beverage Director, Nix Restaurant

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