Finding food writing jobs sounds like the dream, right? You get paid to eat or make food and write about it.
There are a lot of ways you can write about food. You can write recipes, hunt for recipes based on certain diets, become a food critic, write about the food industry, and more. Or this might be the first time you’ve come across the idea of writing about food at all.
If you want to become a food writer, you might be wondering if you need qualifications, how you can get your first jobs, what you need to qualify, and the different types of writing jobs you could find.
How to Find Food Writing Jobs
It’s easier to find food writing jobs than you might think. There are thousands of sites and potential companies you could write for, depending on how you want to approach it.
There are so many ways you can find food writing jobs. Some examples of places that might need work include:
- Food blogs
- Local newspapers
- Travel magazines
- Recipe websites
- Industry-specific websites
Before you start applying for jobs, there are a few things you’ll need to start putting together before you send your first pitch.
Can you find a food writing job with no experience?
Yes, it is possible to find work without any previous experience, but you will need to tune up your skills as a writer before you expect to get any work.
You’ll need to be able to clearly communicate information and your ideas. If you haven’t written in some time, you’ll need to spend some time writing and practicing your craft.
It might help for you to take an internship or beginning role in the food industry to get started, but it’s not always necessary.
What You Need to Become A Food Writer
One of the first things you’ll need to do to become a food writer is start to put together a portfolio you can show off.
Whether you have writing experience or not, you’ll want to start to create content around the type of writing you want to do.
You might need to start a blog or a Medium profile and start to write food blogs around the topic you want to cover. That will give you something to show clients or employers, which is key for you getting paid work.
You can be passionate about food and writing, but without samples, it’s going to be hard to get any editor to give you work.
Coming up with article ideas can also help you get your foot in the door. You’ll want to think of unique angles that they will want to publish.
An editor’s top concern is publishing content that the readers want to read. If you can solve this for them, they’re going to be interested in working with you.
Make sure you are reliable as a writer and respond to any of their emails and questions in a timely manner. If you don’t have a ton of experience, being reliable and hitting your deadlines can help you more than you might know.
If you want to become a food critic, however, you will need to learn some of the technical descriptions when it comes to writing. It may take a bit of a learning curve, but one of the fastest ways to learn is to start reading food critic reviews.
Start Networking
Once you’ve put together your writing samples, you’ll need to formulate your pitches and what you’re going to say to these editors and website owners to make them understand your experience and interests. Check out this article for more help on formulating a pitch.
Networking will be the key to most of your freelance food writing success.
If you have a LinkedIn account, you can start by finding the sites and papers you want to write for and start to connect with some of the editors or owners on there.
You’ll also want to subscribe to the websites’ newsletters that you want to write for or follow them on social media. It will start to give you a good idea of what kind of articles they publish.
Where to Find Food Writing Jobs?
Now that we’ve covered what you’ll need to get your foot in the door for the food writing industry, let’s go over where you can find these writing jobs.
For the most part, you might need to start as a freelance writer and work your way up to a full-time job. You will probably have to start by pitching and doing some small gigs, but all of them will improve your portfolio.
Food blogs and websites
In today’s day and age, you’re bound to find more food writing jobs on niche websites than anywhere else.
If you google “food blogs” you’re going to see thousands pop up.
You could narrow the search by “food blog jobs” or search on freelance blogging job boards and filter them by food.
Local newspapers
Depending on where you live, you might have a local paper that includes local food reviews. It’s not as common as it used to be, but it’s worth taking a look to see if you can find some.
To get your foot in the door at a local magazine, you’ll want to figure out who the editor of that section is and then send them an email. You might not get a response right away, but you can try and keep in touch with them so you can show that you’re consistent and serious.
If your career grows in this area, you can start to write for the bigger newspapers.
Travel magazines
If you want to go to restaurants and try food, writing for travel magazines might be exactly what you’re looking for.
You will want to get your foot in the door by getting to know editors at the magazines you want to write for. Keep notes of the types of articles they publish.
Most travel magazines want readers to know of good places to visit when they travel. If you were traveling, what would you want to read? Those are articles you’ll want to pitch.
Job boards
There are a ton of job boards out there, from ProBlogger to Upwork and all the others, to find food writing jobs.
It might take a while to hunt through and find the jobs that are worth applying for or ones that pay enough, but it’s worth it if this career is your passion and what you want to get into.
Recipe writing
There’s a close relationship between writing about food and writing recipe articles.
There are a ton of recipes on various websites, even ones that aren’t specifically about food. For example, on fitness sites they’ll have healthy recipes.
This is different than writing about things such as restaurant experiences.
If you are passionate about cooking and making food, this might be the perfect fit. You’ll be able to make food, create recipes, and write about it.
If you want to get into recipe writing, you’ll need to work on your photography skills since they usually go hand-in-hand together. Most smartphones now have cameras great enough to get you started.
Food industry
Alternatively, you can write about the food industry as a whole. There are hundreds of ways you could do so. You could cover agriculture, restaurant trends, food manufacturing, and so on.
You could have a journalism-type job where you report news on the industry, report trends such as job growth, or more.
Specialty foods
If you’re passionate about something like wine, you could choose to just focus on writing about it. The possibilities for food passions are almost endless. If there are websites about a particular area, you’re more than likely going to find writing jobs for it.
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