Ice Cream Taster Pay
- Ice cream taste testers can earn up to $60,000 per year, and some YouTubers can earn millions of dollars off of their videos. We rounded up 15 unconventional jobs that pay surprisingly well.
- An ice cream taster can earn up to $100,000 a year, according to some sources. A Day in the Life Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream master taster John Harrison has been sampling ice cream for 30 years.
Career Advice on How to Become an Ice Cream Taster Few careers in the entire world sound as far fetched as that of ice cream taster. Imagine a career where one works tasting ice cream. Your day at work will begin with the realization that you will have to taste thirty-one flavors, by lunch. Indeed this is the dream of many a youngster. To grow up to be an ice cream taster sounds very ideal. Just imagine being able to tell your friends, “Paid for this house in Malibu by eating ice cream. That’s right, ice cream.” |
To celebrate National Ice Cream Day, which is July 19, BonusFinder is looking to hire a professional ice cream tester. And they will pay someone $500 to eat ice cream that they will provide.
Career Facts:
Most people that have this job that sounds rather dreamy actually have rather boring degrees in food science. They are food scientists. The most likely avenue for employment is working for an ice-creamer manufacturer, which should come as no real surprise. The ice cream taster might be expected to perform other duties as well, such as evaluating ice cream, not just for taste but also for texture, smell, consistency and a wide range of other elements. But let’s face it, at the end of the day, it will be the taste that matters the most.
Career Opportunities and Job Outlook- Poor:
Best of luck finding a job working as an ice creamer taster, for if you had this job would you give it up?
A Day in The Life:
Those working as ice cream tasters can expect to do so for large corporations. Like most food scientists, the ice cream taster will work in a safe and, hopefully, clean environment where they will spend their days devising new chemical concoctions and flavor concepts for the consuming public. Is the job fun? That depends of course on how much you like ice cream. Clearly, working as an ice cream tester is someone’s version of hell. But for most, this job seems like a childhood dream come true. Considering that the average food scientist earns about $60,000 dollars per year, it could be said that for ice cream tasters, one can have their ice cream cake and eat it too.
Average Salary:
Those working as ice cream tasters can expect to do so for large corporations. The pay will most likely be minimum wage, and, of course, free ice cream.
Career Training and Qualifications:
A good sense of taste and a real love of ice cream are needed for this career. However, will your love of ice cream last after the 2,304th ice cream sample tasted?
Becoming a professional ice cream taster is one of the best jobs for those who love ice cream. Imagine how nice it would be to get paid to eat ice cream. There are people who taste ice creams for a living. Ice cream taster jobs include tasting different flavors, creating new flavors, and carrying out quality assurance tests on the existing stock.
A professional ice cream taster should have the ability to assess the ice creams in terms of appearance, flavor, and texture. Though this career may sound easy, it is not. You have to evaluate ice cream, not just for their taste, but also for texture, smell, consistency, and various other factors. Before deciding to walk down this road, you must educate yourself on what ice cream tasters do.
A Day in the Life of an Ice Cream Taster
Called taste masters and sensory analysts, these experts taste and evaluate different flavors of ice cream every day. Professional ice cream tasters begin their workday early in the morning when their taste buds are in the best condition. They spend around five hours every day testing anywhere between 20 – 30 different flavors of ice cream at different levels of production.
Apart from this, they are also tasked with creating new flavors as a part of their work.
Becoming an Ice Cream Taster
Eating ice cream for a living may look like the sweetest career with a lucrative paycheck; it comes with its own share of difficulties. As a professional ice cream taster, you will also have to beta-test ice cream flavors some of which could be unpleasant. On average you are supposed to taste as many as 30 flavors a day. The downside is that ice cream tasters only taste but don’t eat.
Dreyer’s grand ice cream master taster John Harrison has tasted and approved over 200 million gallons of ice cream in his career. His extremely talented taste buds are insured for $1 million by the company. He follows a three-step process to taste ice creams.
He swirls, smacks and spits the ice creams he tastes. He noted that though people call this profession a sweet job, it is a huge responsibility. John is also known to have maintained his $1 million tongues. To cleanse his palate every day he drinks only herbal decaf tea and avoids anything that could clog his taste buds.
[Also Read: Steps to Become a Food Critic]
Ice Cream Taster Salary In South Africa
Skills & Qualification Required
Boundless imagination, patience, healthy taste buds, and a discerning palate are some of the necessary skills to be possessed by the ice cream tasters. These skills are very important to possess, as they are expected to assess the nuances of every flavor as much as possible to ensure the quality. Having hands-on experience in a scoop shop will help, as it offers practical knowledge about different ice cream flavors, preservation and what consumer prefers.
Obtain a graduate degree in food science or dairy science so that you can know more about food processing. In addition to this, one should also think of including chemistry, business marketing, and product development. Find an apprenticeship at an ice cream manufacturing company so that you can know everything about ice-cream making. You should take the utmost care of your palate. Your taste buds tongue and mouth must be healthy and free of flavors.
[Also Read: Want to be a Food preneur? Beginner’s Tips to Start a Food Business ]
Drawbacks & Compensation
Ice cream taster jobs come with quite a few drawbacks including weight gain, brain freeze caused by an increase in the blood volumes in the brain, sluggishness and much more. Professional ice cream tasters refrain from eating anything spicy within twenty-four hours of a taste test.
Tasting ice creams can be quite monotonous, as you examine ice creams for weeks at a time. It involves a lot of concentration because you don’t eat a scoopful of ice cream to assess it but just a little bit for taste and then you spit it out. You should evaluate the ice cream ingredient by ingredient and every aspect of the product. Is the ice cream creamy? Can you taste the Vanilla? How strong is the mint flavor? Your taste buds can be easily fatigued so you should take the utmost care of it.
Ice Cream Taster Salary
Ice Cream Taster Salary Per Month
The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t have a category for “food taster”. It is difficult to determine the ice cream taster salary because of the vagueness of the job description. (1) However, as per the reports of the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the food scientists in all industries had a mean annual wage of $ 72,570 in May 2018. It also noted that the employment of food scientists is expected to see a 6% growth from 2016-2026.
Are You Ready for the Job?
Ice Cream Taster Salary
Like any other profession, ice cream taster jobs do have a few perks and downsides. While you can enjoy tasting different flavors of ice cream, you are given a huge responsibility. You can decide if a particular flavor of ice cream can hit the market or not. If you are a great ice cream taster, then the ice cream company that has hired you will even have your taste buds insured for big money. Tasting ice cream for a living can be exhausting and stressful as it takes a lot of concentration for proper assessment. Nevertheless, it is a sweet career.