A recent article in The Week, listed “6 lucrative jobs of the future”. One of those 6 jobs was a food chemist.

“How do you make the perfect cupcake? Ask a food chemist. These gurus are tasked with developing and improving the taste and texture of food — and just about everything else that makes things a bit more delicious.

Why it’s a job of the future:

“[Food chemist jobs] will go wildly crazy in the future,” says Frey. And he attributes it all to 3-D printers, which Frey predicts will cook our food in the future: Just insert the ingredient “cartridges” into a printer, and dinner is served — thanks to the food chemists who figured out how to blend and change flavors for the cartridges. In fact, Frey points out that NASA has already implemented a study to see how 3-D food printers would fare on space missions.

“Incidentally, all of that chemical prowess pays off for these professionals: The ballpark salary for a food chemist with a Ph.D. ranges between $50,000 and $100,000. And given our penchant for fashionable diets and trendy foods, the future for food chemistry looks bright. “Our wacky diets are like fashion of the week,” Frey says, “which leads to new markets and demand.””

Read the full article here.