Do you love eating different types of delicious foods?
If your answer is yes, then let me give you the good news. There are tons of different food-related jobs that will let you get paid to eat!
Every day people are posting their food experiences on social media and other places like food blogs on the internet. So it shouldn’t come to you as a surprise that many food companies, restaurants, etc. are taking notice of this new trend and taking advantage of it.
They use these tactics for the marketing of their restaurants and different food products to attract more customers.
Nowadays, people are getting paid to eat for jobs like food taster jobs. Those who love eating can use these opportunities and make money while eating their favorite cuisines. Whether you go for delicious creations by the best chefs or try new menu items at renowned restaurants or even do food testing jobs for frozen food companies, you can get paid to eat food!
For example, becoming a food critic is a classic career choice for making money by eating different kinds of food & beverage items offered by restaurants, food chains, and other similar establishments. And apart from that, there are many different money-making opportunities that the food industry provides nowadays.
Some of these are jobs that you might have never heard of. But who would say no to some extra money and that too by doing something you enjoy?
10 Real Ways to Get Paid to Eat: Taste Tester Jobs
In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the best jobs that can help you earn some extra money for eating. Let’s begin!
1. Get Paid to Eat at Restaurants as a Mystery Shopper
There are a lot of hotels, restaurants, pubs, etc. that occasionally want to check if their staff is working properly and efficiently. These establishments hire mystery shoppers from agencies to carry these jobs out.
Usually, these mystery shoppers (more like diners) will visit the restaurant, order from the menu, and do a bunch of other tasks. The list of tasks is usually provided by the restaurants to these mystery shoppers.
As a mystery shopper, you’d have to take pictures and videos, send receipts, do quality assessments, create a report, and send it to your mystery shopping agency. The agency will then send these reports to the restaurant owners.
You will receive your payments from the agency. So as a mystery shopper, you can easily make money by eating at restaurants. Here are some of my recommended sites for finding a job as a restaurant mystery shopper:
- MSPA Americas
- Mystery Dining by HGEM
- MarketForce
- Coyle Hospitality Group
- TrendSource
- Regal Hospitality Group
- Satisfaction Services Inc.
2. Become a Professional Food and Wine Tester
Another job you can find to get paid to eat is that of a professional food and wine tester. It can be a full-time or a part-time gig depending on how much time and effort you dedicate to it.
To qualify for these taste testing jobs, you need to have good sensory analysis skills like taste and odor recognition, to easily identify the various tastes and smells in food and beverage products.
In this job, the candidates take part in tests to recognize the taste and aroma of different recipes to develop their sense of taste.
Food tester jobs require a bit more technical analysis of the food as compared to mystery shopper jobs that I listed above.
However, to be successful at this job, you would require special expertise in recognizing taste and odor. If you have any allergies, it can be a hindrance to your job. Also, you must be able to define the food and wine in the clearest and most detailed manner.
Furthermore, if you are of legal age and have testing locations close to your place of residence, you will have higher chances of getting these food tasting jobs more regularly.
Some of these jobs will pay you in cash whereas others might pay you in the form of gift cards.
If you want to make some good money doing these jobs, I recommend you to try doing them full-time. These jobs are often called different names such as food scientists, food testers, food evaluators, etc.
There are many well-established companies that offer taste testing jobs like:
3. Get Paid to Review Restaurants
If you enjoy writing like I do and love the adventures that involve trying out new restaurants and new recipes, writing restaurant and food reviews is a great way of making some extra bucks quickly.
You can work this job as a freelancer and earn enough to meet your day-to-day expenses. As a food reviewer, you visit restaurants, order items from the menu, eat it all up (the best part!), and review everything from the taste to the service.
You can do this as a freelancer and then use your blog to make money from the reviews or get hired by online magazines, newspapers, travel guides, and so on.
Your love of mouth-watering cuisines and restaurants, combined with a decent enough talent for writing, can get you some extra income or even a full-time job.
4. Get Paid to Eat on Camera
It is extremely popular in Korea (and slowly making its presence felt on screens and devices all across the world) and is popularly known as ‘Mukbang’. In this, a person eats big portions of food on camera online. The entire event is recorded or streamed live on the internet.
This trend is quickly becoming very popular all over the world. If you love eating, don’t mind spending some money, and aren’t shy of going live on the internet in front of a camera, you can give Mukbang a shot.
You can literally get paid to eat on social media and video platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, etc. where you can regularly broadcast your eating sessions live online and build up an audience.
It is quite a lucrative option for someone who loves to eat passionately and wants to make money doing it.
You can make money from display ads, affiliate marketing, and sponsorships if you are a popular Mukbang content creator with a decently sized audience on live streaming and video platforms. Some of these platforms pay extremely well for these kinds of videos.
5. Start Food Blogging
If you already know about blogging, then food blogging might not be an entirely new concept to you. It is also an excellent way to make money by eating food.
The most important thing to know is that becoming a successful food blogger takes time and a lot of hard work. But once you’ve written enough content and built up a sizeable readership, you can make anywhere upwards of $1,000 a month or more. There is really no limit.
Some of the big names in the food blogging space earn money through sponsorships from food companies. Apart from having good writing skills, you should also be good at taking pictures and using social media marketing.
The more traffic you have on your food blog website, the more chances to earn through display ads and affiliate marketing.
You can also make money through sponsored ads, paid posts, and referral fees. Some of the platforms that can help you get paid as a food blogger are:
- Google AdSense (Display ads)
- Ezoic (Display Ads)
- Amazon’s affiliate program (Affiliate marketing)
6. Become a Food Critic
Becoming a food critic is yet another great job option that pays you to eat. Good food critic jobs can help you make some really good money. In this, you are required to taste food/beverage items offered at restaurants or hotels and write reviews on them.
Besides tasting various dishes for testing purposes, you might also be asked to write about the ambiance and the services at the restaurant. Food critic jobs are generally offered by magazines, big media websites, and more.
Most of the opportunities come in the form of freelancing, and the competition is intense. You are also expected to have a bachelor’s degree in English, Communication, or any other related field.
The annual average earnings of a food critic can rise to $40,000 with some top critics making more than $100,000 annually. Some of the magazines that could pay you to write about food are:
- Bon Appetit
- Eating Well
- Brew Your Own
- and many more…
7. Get Paid to Eat Food Online
Some companies pay you to eat as you are being recorded on camera. They do this to observe various aspects of the eating process. At times, they also pay you to get food online and monitor the whole process.
Most of these companies do this to understand how people respond to their most favorite or least favorite recipes. They pay you so that others could watch you eat. It is quite popular in Asian countries such as South Korea.
To start attracting attention from such companies, you can start posting your live streaming videos on social media platforms.
You can do this on:
8. Join Independent Sensory Testing Companies
These companies work pretty much like market research organizations. However, instead of doing market research, sensory testing firms focus on food-related studies.
Joining these programs is as easy as joining survey sites such as InboxDollars and Swagbucks for free. These websites invite people to participate based on their demographics.
Depending on the number of food testing firms you join, you can increase your earnings and pay some of your everyday bills.
Some of the best Sensory testing firms that I found are:
9. Apps That Pay You to Eat
There are some amazing apps that pay you to eat as well. These apps will help you earn extra cash just for eating food. You can easily install them on any device and make some money on the side.
Most of these apps pay you rewards in the form of gifts, cashbacks, and deals that you can cash out when you go eat at a restaurant.
There are dozens of legit apps that you can join. Some of the best ones are:
- Seated App
- Dosh
- Resy App
- and more…
10. Become a Competitive Eater
Being a competitive eater is not something everyone can do. However, if you love to eat, like really love eating, and have a big appetite, then you can definitely try competitive eating. It can be a great get-paid-to-eat job.
There is perhaps no other eating job where you will get to eat as much as in competitive eating. The only catch is that you have to eat all that food at once.
To some, it might sound less appealing, but it gives you a chance to make lots of money at once. Every year, many competitive eating contests take place where the winner gets thousands of dollars as prize money.
There are various kinds of eating competitions, like eating pizza, cakes, candies, and more. Restaurants usually conduct these types of contests as a marketing tool to promote their food items.
For instance, the Major League Eating world body organizes about 70 events of competitive eating every year all through North America. The yearly hot-dog-eating contest held at Coney Island in New York is quite popular.
Competitive eating is legal, and you would have to train for months before participating in these contests. You need to develop the capacity and increase the speed of eating various types of foods at once.
In these contests, the contestants are usually given a limited time period along with some specific conditions. They have to eat food within the given time limit while also fulfilling all the contest conditions.
Some of the popular competitive eating contests that you can participate in are:
- Chacho’s World Taco Eating Championship
- The Day-Lee Foods World Gyoza Eating Championship
- National Sweet Corn Eating Championship
- and many more…
Related: 19 Cheap Foods To Lose Weight Fast On A Budget
Conclusion
People who don’t love to eat are a rare breed, and nobody would want to miss the opportunity if they could get paid for eating. All of the above-listed jobs are some of the best ways you can get paid to eat.
You can work all these food taster jobs part-time as a freelancer or as full-time jobs. It can help you make additional money to pay for your living expenses.
It certainly sounds great to be able to get paid to eat at your favorite restaurants or make money by eating food online. But it is important to work hard and establish yourself as a professional food taster first.
Also, beware of online scams and fake websites, and always look for genuine companies that actually pay you for your efforts.
I believe that I’ve mentioned some of the most genuine and legitimate companies in this article. And I hope it provides you with a great framework to get you started on your journey to make money by eating professionally.
I wish you all the best!
Have you ever gotten paid to eat food and were you aware of the methods listed above? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
