Protect product quality. Accelerate QC decisions.

In food and beverage quality control (QC), your laboratory is a safeguard for product integrity and consistency. You need to deliver results quickly, keep methods consistent across shifts and sites, manage increasing workloads, control costs, and defend your decisions during audits, customer complaints, and supplier disputes.​

With Waters, QC labs can streamline workflows, minimize reruns, and produce more consistent results. Our solutions include optimized sample preparation, dependable HPLC/UHPLC platforms, reliable column chemistries, flexible detection options, and efficient and compliance‑ready software. Waters also provides services designed for routine environments, including training, maintenance, and instrument support.​

With Waters, your lab can:​

  • Ensure batch‑to‑batch consistency from ingredients through final products​
  • Broaden analytical capabilities across amino acids, sugars, sweeteners, vitamins, and other key chromatographic workflows​
  • Generate traceable, audit‑ready data that supports modern laboratory quality management systems​
Download Application Notebook
Two factory worker inspecting production line of drink production in factory
Two workers examining a bottle from a conveyor belt

Streamlined testing. Efficient results.

QC managers need to support production with fast, reliable, and consistent results. With Waters tools and workflows, your team can reduce variability, streamline testing, and make release decisions with confidence.​

Are these pain points affecting your QC lab?​

  • Reruns and repeat work caused by sample prep variability, method drift, or lengthy system downtime​
  • Shift-to-shift variability when methods are sensitive to analyst‑dependent steps
  • Bottlenecks from unknown peaks, coelutions, or inconsistent processing​
  • Extended investigations when results aren’t traceable or workflows aren’t standardized​

Achieve more consistent and efficient releases with Waters​:

  • Technologies and workflows for consistent execution across analysts, shifts, and sites​
  • Reliable LC columns that support consistent, repeatable QC workflows​
  • Separation and detection options to help teams choose workflows that fit their product type and method needs​
  • Comprehensive service plans like FlexCHOICE: mySystem Coverage to help maintain instrument performance and reduce unplanned downtime​
  • Powerful data processing and reporting in Empower Software to support consistent data handling regardless of who runs the analysis​
An interracial family having fun in their kitchen with pregnant mother, father, and toddler daughter.

Standardize across batches, shifts, and sites

Variability in routine QC can come from factors like lot‑to‑lot differences in LC columns, instrument performance and uptime, analyst experience and training, sample prep variation, and inconsistent data processing. QC teams looking to improve reproducibility need technologies that support consistent execution. ​

Waters provides the technologies and workflows to help your team drive reproducible methods and support consistency across your business.​

Standardize your QC with these tools:

Whether you’re developing QC workflows for new products, ingredients, or reformulations, or looking to improve consistency, our team can help you identify the technologies that best support your goals.​

Read an example
stock-mother-and-child-shopping-for-produce.jpg

See what matters most with detection options

Because analytes and matrices vary, from lacking a chromophore to needing lower limits or added identification or confirmation, QC labs need detection options that can reliably “see” what matters. Waters can help you choose the right detector, or combination of detectors, to meet your routine QC workflow needs.​

Detection options to strengthen routine QC decisions:​

  • Ultraviolet/Visible (UV/Vis)/Photodiode Array (PDA): Reliable quantitation for analytes with chromophores, PDA adds spectral profiles for peak purity checks and co‑elution detection​
  • Refractive Index (RI): Universal detection for non‑chromophoric analytes such as sugars, providing a simple, robust option for routine assays​
  • Evaporative Light Scattering (ELS/ELSD): Near universal detection for semi‑ and non‑volatile compounds with little UV response​
  • Charge Aerosol Detector (CAD): Broad detection for compounds with weak or no UV response, including sugars and certain sweeteners​
  • ACQUITY QDa II Mass Detector: Mass detection for confident analyte confirmation, with added SIR selectivity for cleaner, more specific results​
Download Our eBook
Two women at a restaurant. One is holding nigiri with chopsticks close to the camera

The right workflow for your QC application

Food and beverage QC isn’t one workflow; it’s a set of recurring standardized procedures that need to run reliably across shifts and sites.

With Waters, you can select the right combination of column chemistry, LC platform, detector, and data workflow for routine execution, whether you’re standardizing existing methods or expanding capabilities.​

  • Sugars and sugar substitutes: Pair the right column and detector for either sugar profiling or sugar-substitute quantitation, so routine QC stays reliable and repeatable across shifts and sites.​
  • Amino acids: A robust derivatization workflow plus UPLC system and column choices that deliver stable retention and reproducible quantitation, minimizing reruns.​
  • Vitamins: Flexible workflows for water- and fat-soluble panels, with detection options that balance routine throughput and confidence and are built to handle formulation and matrix complexity.​
  • Evolving requirements: Regulatory updates, reformulation, and new label claims require workflows and detection options that can adapt quickly, without rebuilding methods from scratch.​
Download Our eBook
Woman smiling while putting a spoonful of sweetener in her coffee

Confident data. Confident decisions.

Even when requirements vary by region, QC labs are increasingly expected to prove traceability, consistency, and control, so that your results are defensible in audits, inspections, and investigations.

Auditors and quality systems increasingly expect:​

  • Secure data storage and fast retrieval​
  • Robust audit trails and controlled access​
  • Consistent processing and reporting workflows​
  • “Validation-ready” behaviors (e.g., e-signatures and controlled changes), even when not explicitly mandated​

How Waters helps (without adding complexity):​

  • Traceable electronic records, standardized templates, and reporting designed for routine QC decision-making with Empower Software​
  • A workflow-driven, single-window experience that shows users only what they need, when they need it, plus guided help to cut training time with Empower Software’s QuickStart Interface ​
  • Automatable built-in custom calculations (no spreadsheets) in Empower Software to reduce manual steps and transcription errors — supporting faster, more consistent release decisions​

Empower Software helps you defend release decisions with audit-ready records, and the Empower Software Quick Start Interface makes it easier for analysts to get productive fast, without limiting the capabilities.​

Learn More
Chef chopping raw vegetables on a wooden cutting board

Disruption down. Production? Way up.​

In manufacturing environments, uptime and consistency matter as much as analytical performance. Whether you’re deploying across multiple sites, rolling out standardized methods, onboarding analysts, or maintaining instrument performance, Waters Services help you stay productive and reduce disruption.

  • Reduce downtime and protect throughput with FlexCHOICE: mySystem Coverage ​
  • Accelerate method adoption, confidence, and consistency with your teams with Analytical Professional Services​
  • Improve repeatability in repetitive steps and free analyst time for more strategic challenges with the automation-ready path of the Andrew+ Robot and OneLab Software​
Watch Educational Series
Plate with heart-healthy antioxidant foods

Build a QC strategy that protects your brand and scales with your business.

Waters helps food and beverage manufacturers maintain consistent quality, meet evolving requirements, and improve efficiency with workflows that connect sample preparation, separation, detection, and compliance-ready data. ​

Waters helps food and beverage manufacturers maintain consistent quality, meet evolving requirements, and improve efficiency with workflows that connect sample preparation, separation, detection, and compliance-ready data. ​
Back To Top Back To Top