The rat race: pest control in the food industry

In the internet-enabled age, bad news travels fast. No longer can food and beverage processors hope that product recalls and safety breaches won’t reach the wider public.

As consumers take advantage of lightning-fast modern communication to keep themselves informed, it’s all the more important for food brands to maintain a squeaky-clean reputation, especially in the areas of health and hygiene.

Pests, from tiny insects almost invisible to the naked eye to sizeable rodents, are naturally drawn to food processing and storage plants. They pose a significant risk of disease and serious infestations can result in loss of revenue, damage to recognised brands, regulatory penalties and employee anger.

Rentokil is one of the UK’s leading pest control companies, with decades of experience preventing and eradicating infestations in the food industry.

We spoke to the company’s technical director Savvas Othon about the risks pests pose to the industry and the technology available for detection and prevention.

Chris Lo: What are the most common pest control problems found in commercial food and beverage production operations?

Savvas Othon: Stored product insects (SPIs), rodents, flies and cockroaches all pose real threats in the food production environment. For example, flies are potential carriers of a wide range of diseases such as dysentery, gastroenteritis and E coli while SPIs such as flour mites, rice weevils and fungus beetles can be found in grains, cereals, and perishable goods.

Both pests can live for up to a year and breed quickly, which can lead to a devastating pest outbreak and if not dealt with, the closure of your business.

Rodents are always on the look-out for warm, food-rich environments to nest in, so any environment with food on the premises is ideal. They can cause considerable damage by gnawing through equipment wires but also pose a serious health risk, contaminating their environments through their urine, droppings and hairs.

Rodents can carry a wide range of bacteria and diseases that can be passed on to humans, including Salmonella, E.coli, tuberculosis, Hantavirus and Weil’s disease. Rodents also carry fleas, mites and ticks and can cause acute allergic reactions in staff on site.

One of the biggest pest concerns are cockroaches, which as an infestation can, again, give rise to the potential closure of your business – it goes without saying that any cockroach issues will have a negative effect on your health and hygiene reputation. Cockroaches can lead to an outbreak of diseases such as salmonella (food poisoning) and escherichia coli (gastroenteritis), which, of course, can hugely affect both employee and client trust.

CL: How are food processors regulated in the UK when it comes to hygiene and pests, and what are the consequences for failure to follow guidelines?

SO: Under the Food Safety Act of 1990, it is an offence to sell food that does not comply with food safety requirements. Food damaged by pests, or contaminated by their droppings or urine, would be considered unfit for human consumption. In such cases Environmental Health Officers have the right to seize such foods for destruction, and to demand that remedial works be undertaken.

Businesses can be closed while infestations, or factors conducive to them, remain. If an organisation is proven to have been negligent in its pest control, there can be severe financial damage to the company in the form of hefty fines of up to £20,000 or more if a legal suit is successfully filed. These can be avoided if it can be proven that a food manufacturer has taken proactive action in its pest control and enforced a regulated and thorough approach. However, we mustn’t forget that brand damage is immeasurable and could have a much more widespread impact on the business than any fine would.

Auditing standards include the British Retail Consortium, American Institute of Bakers and The Soil Association, among others. Also, a number of supermarket brands have their own specifications that they set for their suppliers, the most well known being Marks and Spencer, and Tesco.

Although these are not legislative bodies, compliance with these specifications are paramount as a deviation from them, in a worse case scenario, could result in the retailer cancelling contracts with the supplier resulting in a serious loss of business.

CL: Can some pests be difficult to detect without specialist equipment?

SO: SPIs commonly infest food products and it’s important to effectively control them as soon as they are first noticed so as not to contaminate products further. They can be really hard to spot because they’re so small, but once noticed they can be treated.

Rentokil’s unique fumigation treatment ProFume (sulfuryl fluoride) tackles SPI infestations in buildings and can penetrate areas where SPI gather where other pest control methods can’t reach – inside equipment, for example. ProFume kills SPIs at all lifecycle stages, meaning a far more thorough and precise solution.

CL: Are there any new pest control technologies that have emerged in the last few years to make pest detection easier?

SO: Alongside ProFume, we have recently developed a new thermal imaging process to deliver quicker and more effective identification of pest problems, using infrared technologies. This will give managers access to pest-related information they would otherwise be unable to see, such as rodents’ harbourages in wall cavities and burrows.

Our Mouse RADAR unit is a prime example of using non toxic alternatives within pest control. RADAR works by allowing mice to run through a passageway within the unit. When the mouse breaks two consecutive infrared beams, it immediately closes both entrances and carbon dioxide is released into the chamber.

The gas acts rapidly to subdue and kill the mouse and is widely recognised as a humane method of control. RADAR is much safer than conventional baits, which pose the risk of pesticide contamination. The RADAR unit is self-contained, and allows safe and discreet removal of dead mice by qualified Rentokil technicians.

If flies pose a problem, a cure can also be found easily with Rentokil’s Luminos 3 Plus and Luminos 4 units, which use a combination of UV light and encapsulation technology to attract flying insects and capture them hygienically. These Luminos units can be used in sensitive areas such as food storage and food preparation areas, to ensure highly effective fly control.

We have also introduced an online reporting and analysis tool, PestNetOnline, which captures all the information from service visits, including recommendations, allowing managers to quickly assess any existing or potential infestations. The information can be accessed 24/7 from wherever you are, enabling you to manage pest control in your business consistently and effectively. This is particularly helpful for brands which multiple facilities.

CL: Does training play an important part in establishing good pest control practice?

SO: Absolutely – we firmly believe that pest-free conditions can only be created and maintained if your whole team is made aware of the problems pests cause, and genuinely understand their role in preventing them.

Educating your business is crucial and we work with our customers to engender the message internally that all pests are simply bad for business.

Rentokil offers a special employee training programme called Pestaware. Our aim here is to provide training about the pests specific to your industry. Basic pest knowledge enables staff to spot the presence of pests early and help prevent the risk of contamination.

Bespoke awareness training programmes include pest damage identification, current legislation updates, certificates of attendance as well as an introduction to food hygiene training. With pest control, your staff can be your secret weapon so investing in training is imperative.

CL: In your experience, what is the best approach to keeping a food-processing plant or similar facility hygienic and pest-free?

SO: There really isn’t a one-size fits all approach to pest control and it’s certainly not an approach we’d recommend. From our experience working with some of the leading brands in the industry, we know that each and every food and beverage processor has its own specific requirements. So what’s critical is that their pest control programme meets the particular and unique needs of their business.

What I would restate, however, is that prevention is always better than cure and this is reflected in the way we work – our aim is to stop pests before they risk your customers’ safety. By the time a customer realises they have an infestation, the damage can already be done.