Sanitation Standards
7. Pest control
In food processing environments, pest control is a must as a pest infestation puts your product quality and safety at risk. However, pest management in a food processing environment is also difficult, as pest control treatments must not contaminate the food. Prevention by addressing the underlying causes of pest infestation can help reduce the use of harmful treatments. This can be planned in an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) plan, which is implemented in a continuous cycle of 6 critical steps:
Step 1: Regular inspection
Focus on areas where pests are most likely to appear – receiving docks, storage areas, employee break rooms, sites of recent ingredient spills, etc. – and identify any potential entry points, food and water sources, or harborage zones that might encourage pest problems.
Step 2: Preventive Action
Once vulnerable areas are identified, take steps to address them before they cause a real problem.
These can be closing potential entry points (e.g. fly screens, blocking holes, etc.) or regular sanitation measures (like waste removal, cleaning, etc.)
Step 3: Identification of pests
Identify possible pests and inform yourself about their behavious to plan effective counter measures.
Step 4: Analyse the underlying issues
In case you already have a pest problem identify the causes. What attracts these pests in your facility? Is there food debris or moisture
accumulating somewhere? Are they attracted to certain odors? Are there structural weaknesses in your building that allow pests to enter or build their homes in your facility? Could
incoming shipments be infested? The answers to such questions will linform your choice of counter measures.
Step 5: Select the right treatment
Where appropriate you can place bait and trap stations in strategic places in your facility to catch rodents or insects. This will also assist in monitoring pest levels and inform your decision making on more invasive prest treatments. Your pest management
plan should always aim at effectively eliminating pests at the least risk to your food
safety. This means chemical solutions should alsways be the last step. In some cases this might need to be carried out by professional service providers.
Step 6: Monitoring and documentation
Pest management is an ongoing process, and regular monitoring is mandatory to prevent infestation. Any pest or sanitation
issues should be reported at first sight and documented together with any action taken (inclusing pesticide usage report). Your documentation should also include a map that shows the layout of any traps, the frequency of their control/service, a
list of approved pesticides for each purpose, and the staff members trained and responsible for pest control.