What is Water Damage:

Water damage is used to describe the millions of dollars lost every year in our industry due to the reporting, or not reporting of water content.

A company wishes to purchase a raw material.  The raw material is marketed as 98%.  And it is backed by analytical results.  But wait, the standard used to calibrate was a sigma material, not really a reference standard.  The sigma material says 98%, but further down on the CofA it says 10% water.  Thats right, 98% pure with 10% water.  So now the analysis is completely biased high due to water content, good for suppliers but bad for manufacturers.

This company then formulates their product based on 98% pure.  And their resulting finished product is 10% low when sent to an analytical laboratory that uses real reference materials corrected for water content. 

This practice is encouraged by the USP, read the recent method addition for OPCs, they are reported on a dry weight basis.  Do you purchase on a dry weight basis? 

None of that matters because the finished product is reported based on dose; pill, teaspoon, milliliter, gel cap etc. and these are not corrected to dry weight.  So millions of dollars are spent every year on water, and millions of dollars are lost on finished products that fail low due to formulation as received, not based on dry weight.  It might seem there is an economic advantage to selling "wet" products....

Reminds me of the sand and gravel lot that sells by the ton, they water their dirt "to keep it from blowing away".  Funny, my sand and gravel lot sells by the cubic yard, and they don't water the dirt to keep it from blowing away.....