A professional who performs standardized qualitative and quantitative tests to determine physical or chemical properties of food or beverage products, or to ensure compliance with company or government quality standards. Responsibilities include:

• Conducts standardized tests of food, beverages, additives, and preservatives for flavor, color, texture, nutritional value, or other factors, using incubator, autoclave, ovens, balance scales, refractometer, or other equipment.
• Tests flavoring and spices for moisture, oil content, coloring, and pungency, using spectrophotometer, stereomicroscope, and ovens.
• Tests production samples of food for compliance with standards, using spectrometer, pH meter, distillation equipment, balance scales, and other equipment.
• Refers to tables or computes such factors as moisture, salt content, sediment, or solubility.
• Smells samples of food for odors or tastes for prescribed flavor.
• Observes sample smear, sediment disk, or agar sample through microscope to identify bacterial or extraneous matter.
• Compares test results with standards and records results.
• Cleans laboratory equipment.
• May mix ingredients to make reagents.
• May operate calculating machine to compute percentages of ingredients in finished product.
• May be identified according to quality or product tested.