Food & Environmental

Public health and environmental testing laboratories rely on our instruments, software, reagents, and consumables products to help ensure the safety of drinking water and that foods are authentic and free of adulterants or contaminants. Our instruments help our customers identify PFAS (aka: “forever chemicals” that can be harmful to humans and the environment) at very low levels to study their persistence and toxicity. Waters also provides both technology and expertise to help advance the science of plant-based and alternative protein foods.

  • Preventing The Next Pandemic: Leveraging the Andrew+ Pipetting Robot and Extraction+ Connected Device to Monitor Antimicrobials in Hospital Wastewater

    By Waters Staff Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Dr. Takashi Azuma’s research on hospital wastewater monitoring at Osaka Medical and Pharmaceutical University may prevent the next global pandemic. Five years later, it is difficult to forget the horror of the Covid-19 pandemic. Leaving behind a death toll estimated at between 18.2 million to 33.5 million, the greatest recession since the Great Depression, and…

  • Solutions in Sustainable Food Supply

    By Euan Ross Reading Time: 5 minutes

    As the world looks to provide enough protein to an increasing global population, cultivated meat and dairy products could be one sustainable solution.

  • Determination of Acrylamide in Processed Foods

    By Euan Ross Reading Time: 5 minutes

    A requirement for many food processors is to understand the levels of acrylamide in their products and to reduce those levels if possible. Acrylamide is a process contaminant that forms in starchy foods when they are baked, roasted, or fried. A reaction between an amino acid and reducing sugars, known as a Maillard reaction, is…

  • Solutions for Mycotoxin Testing: Analytical Perspectives from Field to the Laboratory

    By Simon Hird Reading Time: 6 minutes

    The food and feed industries quest to balance quality and safety assurance with economy and efficiency has always posed challenges, but in the context of an increasingly globalized food supply, rising concern about foodborne illness, the need for mycotoxin test methods that help companies do more with less has taken on a new urgency. Whether…

  • Recent Trends in Beverage Testing – Vitamins

    By Euan Ross Reading Time: 6 minutes

    Driven by the global COVID-19 pandemic, consumers increasingly seek food and beverages that support immunity and health. As a result, the global functional beverages market is expected to grow to $158 billion in 2023. Waters HPLC and UPLC solutions enable reliable, accurate, and efficient testing methods to ensure that finished beverage products meet manufacturers’ specifications and nutritional label claims.

  • Nuts About Christmas … And Mycotoxin Detection

    By Simon Hird Reading Time: 7 minutes

    A bowl of nuts, with polished or carved nutcrackers, is part of many traditional winter holiday feasts. Growing up in England in the 1970s, I enjoyed hazelnuts, almonds, walnuts and Brazil nuts as special treats for the Christmas holiday. Once I’d wrestled with a nutcracker, seemingly designed to send nuts and shards of shell across…

  • Oil: A Source of Light and Cause for Celebration

    By Eimear McCall Reading Time: 3 minutes

    The use of light during holidays or festivals – in any form, including candles, lanterns, or fireworks – is significant, as we celebrate and look ahead to the future. Many friends and colleagues recently celebrated Diwali (where light represents the triumph of good over evil and light over darkness), and others begin Hanukkah, the Festival…

  • Simple Joys: Giving Thanks in a New World

    By Patricia Jackson Reading Time: 3 minutes

    There’s a longstanding debate among historians about whether America’s first Thanksgiving feast at Plymouth Colony in fall 1621 included turkey. Yet, today there’s no disputing that this bird has become a symbol and centerpiece of America’s Thanksgiving celebrations. This Thanksgiving Day staple has also played a significant role in food safety by enabling the discovery…

  • USEPA Approves APGC Tandem Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry as Alternative Test Procedure for Dioxin Analysis

    By Jenifer Lewis Reading Time: 3 minutes

    A Breakthrough in Dioxin Analysis for Environmental Laboratories In September, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) recognized the use of atmospheric pressure gas chromatography (APGC) with tandem quadrupole mass spectrometry (MS) as an acceptable alternative to traditional high-resolution magnetic sector mass spectrometry for USEPA Method 1613. The recognition frees laboratories to adopt the Waters…