i don't know anything about the food industry, but if you don't want to be a chef, can you transition in to restaurant general manager or something similar?
i'm just drawing on the analogy of someone in the trades on the tools moving in to the office when they can no longer be on the tools.
it would build upon existing experience and evolve one's career. if one's position is bulletproof, but only up to a certain age, then i'm planning my next move before i "age out" of my current position.
software engineer is also a young man's game. when i got laid off i took it as an opportunity to see where my path would lead me and realized i didn't want to be coding in to middle and then old age, so at that time i was looking in to business dev or project management. eventually i went down a diff path but in the end it's still career planning at some level...though i was probably a little too basic in my thinking...i didn't have friend/family or RS wisdom to guide me at that time
