You Are What You Eat! Food Industry Pest Control Trips
You don’t want bugs in your house, and you especially don’t want bugs at the restaurant you made your dinner reservation for tonight at, right? You better hope there are some restaurant pest control programs in place.
Unfortunately, pest control problems are extremely common in the food service industry, whether at a small cafe, a massive restaurant, a food packaging facility or a grocery store. Food and liquids draw pests, as do open doors, crowds and garbage that tend to be common in such places. It is critically important that restaurant and other food service industry managers take both preventative steps to reduce the risk of pest issues and immediate action when pest issues arise.
Our pest control technicians were once called to a restaurant that repeatedly was dealing with mice. We trapped the mice, provided our services to prevent mice from entering the restaurant through holes, the foundation and the roofline, but no matter what we did, the mice kept coming back. As you can imagine, the restaurant management was not very happy with us – what were we doing wrong?
We knew it wasn’t our team that was letting the mice come back in. Knowing we had taken the proper steps to keep rodents out of the restaurant, our pest control expert recommended that the manager examine the weekly supply delivery thoroughly as soon as it arrived. When he did, he found mice snuggled in his packs of hamburger buns – it turns out it was his supplier with the rodent problem, bringing both food and rodents right through the door each day!
Flies and rodents are two common pest issues restaurants are faced with. Here are a few tips for excluding these and other pests from your restaurant or other food service property:
– Make sure to properly rotate your stock, which allows you to clean often, inspect areas for signs of infestation, remove decaying food products and treat affected areas as needed.
– Use bio products to clean floors and other surfaces to remove organic material left behind that could serve as breeding materials for pests.
– Inspect your trash containers, sinks and floor drains for any accumulation of decaying organic matter, and keep your outdoor trash containers away from the doors to your property.
– Install fly lights to attract and trap flying pests.
– Install exclusion screens in every door and window throughout your property to prevent insect and rodent entry.
– Consult with a local pest control company to design a customized pest control management program that may service your property weekly, biweekly or monthly to handle existing pest problems and provide preventative maintenance services.
If you are a manager in the food service industry and you have questions about preventing or eliminating pest issues, contact us today.