Fruit and Vegetable Factory Worker
What the work is
Operates machines and performs routine tasks to prepare canned and frozen fruit and vegetables, and make and package sauces, jams and juices.
Would you enjoy the work?
These are the main tasks in the official description. Mark how each one sounds to you.
- Operates heating, chilling, pasteurising, carbonating and sulphuring equipment to prepare canned and frozen fruits and vegetables
- Peels, cores, chops, pits and juices fruit and vegetables
- Inspects and removes damaged produce
- Prepares sauces, jams and juices
- Cleans equipment, including pumps, hoses, storage tanks and machinery
- Packages finished products with proper labelling
Try it
A simulation and a case study from this kind of work, set in a food and drink factory with a bakery line, a dairy room and a packing hall. They are fictional.
The kind of days you could have
Good days
- A line runs smoothly for a whole shift and the product coming off is exactly right
- The smell of fresh bread or roasting coffee as you start an early morning
- A batch passes quality check first time and you know your care made the difference
Hard days
- An early start in the cold or heat of the production hall
- A machine jams in the middle of a big order and the whole line stops
- Cleaning down a line at the end of a long shift, when you are very tired
Written by Career Calling as a general guide. Real roles vary by employer and place.
Work a mission
Step into a simulated workplace in this field, with a brief from your manager.
Description and tasks: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Occupation Standard Classification for Australia, 2024, Version 1.0 (opens another site), occupation 831136, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. The skill guide above is our plain English summary.