Why is pest control a necessity in food processing facilities?
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You can start with your audit scores and reputation. Third-party audits are a serious matter for food processing facilities. Just one low score can cause your customers to lose trust in your business—and if those customers pull their support, you could see a major impact on your bottom line.
Taking the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) into account, food processing facilities have every reason to strengthen their pest control program and documentation efforts to not only follow and implement a risk-based prevention program to protect their product and consumer base, but also be audit-ready at any time. Success on your third-party audit hinges on documentation, and the pest management portion can make all the difference in your score—it accounts for up to 20 percent.
Then there are the pests themselves.
Cockroaches and ants can pick up and transfer harmful bacteria. Flies can spread disease-causing organisms everywhere they land—and they land frequently, leaving their traces in an abundance of places.
Then there are rodents, which can also cause serious health problems. According to the CDC, rats and mice are known to spread bacteria like Salmonella and E. coli, as well as more than 35 diseases worldwide, such as hantavirus.
From its impact on audit scores to its role in abating health concerns and to brand protection, pest control should be a priority for any food processing facility. An ongoing, comprehensive, and well-documented Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program, which focuses on risk-based preventive strategies like sanitation and facility maintenance to help prevent pest activity, is ideal for food processing facilities.
Picking the Right Partner
With all this in mind, it’s important to find the right, licensed pest management professional who will partner with you and your staff to implement a customized IPM program for your facility and help keep pest problems away. But the key word here is “partnership.”
When starting your search for a pest management partner, be sure to ask about IPM. IPM is the preferred pest management practice of NSF International’s food safety audits and helps meet and exceed the requirements of industry auditors. One-size-fits-all pest management solutions are simply not effective, so look for a provider who can tailor an IPM program specifically to your facility and your needs.
The following guidelines can help you search for a pest management partner that stands out from the crowd.
Start your search with your peers. If you’re looking for pest management recommendations, start by talking to your industry colleagues. If your facility is part of a larger network, you may also consider talking with other managers about their pest management providers and their results.
Insist on an inspection before you sign. Once you have a list of providers to check out, it’s time to see how they treat your facility—don’t choose a provider sight unseen. Your partnership with a potential pest management provider should start with a full inspection and assessment of your facility.
Remember, IPM programs are customizable to specific facilities. A thorough inspection will help the potential provider determine what type of services you need in yours.
Get the details in writing. FSMA requires food processing facilities to develop and execute written risk-based preventive food safety plans that detail likely hazards, corrective actions, and results. With this in mind, your pest management professional should thoroughly document any service visits and corrective actions.
You want a provider who not only documents his or her every move but also uses the documented information to determine pest trends and aid in decisions about how to best manage pest activity going forward. These records should be kept onsite for any surprise audits.
My wife said that she was hearing things, and we wanted to see if there were pests in our house. I really like that you say to insist on an inspection before signing. It would be nice to see if there is actually something in your house before paying for it.
It’s good to know that you should be insisting on an inspection before signing a contract. I tend to make these kinds of decisions quickly, so I’ll have to remind myself to not sign too quickly when I think I’ve found the perfect pest control company. Plus, it’s just good to go at a slow pace when making these kinds of decisions; the quality of your pest control can significantly affect your building’s value!
The article makes a really good point about just how important it is to ask for an inspection before you sign on with any particular pest control company. After all, they’re not going to be able to write you a proper estimate for their service if they don’t fully understand what kind of infestation they’re dealing with. Getting to look at the infestation ahead of time can also help the pest control service figure out which tools they need to bring before the actual service.
The office I work for is looking for a new pest control service that will be able to help us get rid of some bugs we’ve seen around. So I like your advice to make sure to have the company inspect your space so that you can be sure they will treat it with care in the future. I will be sure to tell my boss that he should get inspections from each pest control service he considers to see how they will work around our office.
It might not seem like the obvious thing to do at first, but the article makes a pretty good point about starting your search with recommendations. After all, you likely have several business colleagues in the area that have dealt with pest control before. They should be able to easily tell you which local pest control companies are good and which ones are bad.
I do think it is a great idea that the article suggests trying to get an inspection done before you hire the pest control service. After all, the pest control service will ideally need to know what kind of pest they are dealing with before telling you how much it will cost. That way they can give you a proper estimate for the tools, chemicals, and equipment that will need to be used to get rid of the pest.
It really can help to take the article’s advice and make sure that they inspect your property first. After all, you will want the pest control professional to get a good look at what your situation is. That way they can get an idea of what tools they’ll need and provide you with a better estimate of what the cost will be.
I agree that you should ask people you know for recommendations for a pest control company first. You want to also talk to companies around you for who they use and trust. That will help you ensure you are finding a pest control service that provides great results, like you said.