Protecting your food business with the four pillars of IPM

The food industry is subjected to continuous change — supply chains are becoming more complex, regulations are tightening, populations are growing and consumer demands are evolving, requiring businesses to adapt and innovate.

To top it all off, the industry has a constant battle on its hands with pests and the threat of infestations.

Rats, mice, pigeons, flies, weevils, mites and a plethora of other SPIs can all wreak havoc on production, storage and transportation processes, impacting brand reputation, profits and, most importantly, food safety.

This blog explores the importance of an integrated pest management (IPM) programme in addressing these challenges, and how a proactive and holistic IPM strategy can help you effectively manage pest risks, protect your operations and ensure the highest food safety and quality standards.

What is IPM?

IPM is a combination of practices that eliminate the root cause of pest infestations and focus on their long-term prevention while minimising risks to people and the environment.

Pest prevention by IPM practices

It's significantly easier to prevent pests if there's an IPM plan or programme with an ecosystem of solutions to stop pest activity on your premises, using environmentally friendly methods wherever possible. At Rentokil, we build an IPM strategy for you tailored around our tried-and-tested principles of exclusion, restriction, destruction and monitoring — to give you the protection you need for your premises.

Exclusion: your first line of defence

Preventing entry to your premises is the first step in effective IPM. By proofing and sealing holes and gaps, replacing screens and repairing defects around entryways, pipes, drains and structures, you close off potential entry points and minimise the risk of pests infiltrating your sites and becoming a bigger problem. Pest proofing is even more important if buildings are empty or operating with reduced human presence, like at weekends or overnight, when the lack of activity can entice pests and provide them with the perfect opportunity to explore unnoticed.

Pest control solutions that use exclusion techniques

When dealing with mice that can squeeze through 1cm holes and cockroaches that enter through cracks in tiles, it's essential to investigate entry points thoroughly and have a host of proofing solutions to suit. From foams, sealants, ground meshes, bristle strips and insect screens on doors/windows to impenetrable barriers that use Kevlar and steel mesh on dock levellers to protect loading bays from rodents, we have you covered.

Hawking, steel spikes, electric, wire and netting systems can be used to deter even the most relentless bird pests, such as sparrows and pigeons. Innovative devices that tap into birds’ instincts and learned behaviour are highly effective and safe because they disperse the birds silently and without harm to animals or the environment.

Restriction: containing the risk

Pests might be enticed by the quiet and seclusion of empty premises with few people, but that doesn't mean bustling buildings escape the risk. Pests are also often drawn to premises by food odours and lighting, lured in by the potential for food, water, warmth, shelter, and safety from predators. This allows them to breed freely in relative comfort, posing huge problems for businesses that process, store or move food items.

Restriction measures serve to contain the spread of pest infestations or discourage access. They do this with pest risk assessments, identifying areas where food, water and harbourage could provide incentives for entry and then recommending areas where those inducements could possibly be removed or reduced.

Restricting pest activity with optimal hygiene standards

Pests don't need to be given much of an opportunity, and even the most diligent businesses can unintentionally attract pests. They are determined critters who jump at the chance of a meal or safe space. A loose food container, clutter or a small food spill could be enough of an invite. To avoid attracting pests, businesses need to keep food containers tightly sealed, use tight-fitting lids on bins and regularly empty them.

Every step of the food supply chain is susceptible to pests, and it extends beyond a securely proofed building. Even incoming goods and vehicles should be inspected for pests and potential risk spots, ensuring vehicles are regularly cleaned to avoid them becoming a pest target. With so many potential risk spots, it's not an easy task, but one that could be made considerably easier — as the saying goes, many hands make light work — train your staff to help spot the signs of pest activity or entry points and better protect your business from the risk of pest infestations.

Destruction of pests

If pests penetrate a premises and an infestation takes hold, destruction methods remove pests, taking back control and making your premises safe again. Only when absolutely necessary, this could include pesticide use, which brings its own challenges and set of regulations and standards, restricting the use and storage of some, such as rodenticides. When it comes to destruction methods, it’s important to know you’re working with experts who understand what, when and where methods can be used and can help you comply with local standards/regulations, such as those for pesticide use, food safety and wildlife, to remove pests safely and responsibly. They can help ensure any and all destruction measures are evaluated for their effectiveness so that pest infestations are dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Pest control solutions that rely on destruction techniques

Rodent traps and tracking

Manual solutions for rodents include bait traps such as snap traps, bait stations and ceiling traps that prevent rodents from using overhead areas as a ‘superhighway’ to access all parts of the building. At Rentokil, we use Fluorescent tracking gel that can help to assess the extent of rodent activity. It highlights rodent tracks on virtually any surface, giving you valuable insight into the rodents' movements and, therefore, providing a good indication of where to place traps or bait. These gels are more versatile than tracking dust and can safely be used in splash and spill zones in areas where food is handled.

Connected rodent-control devices for faster intervention

Digital solutions are growing in popularity, with demand increasing year on year. But what is it that's making them a sought after solution? It's the combination of networked systems and connected devices that keep an eye on your premises 24/7, ready to detect pest activity.

One of the newest innovations in our arsenal of connected devices is RADAR X, a bait-free, dual-chamber connected mouse trap that’s HACCP certified for facilities that operate a HACCP-based food safety programme. Designed with controlled bait access in mind is also Dual Autogate Connect, an effective rodent monitoring and control device. It works with a sensor that must be activated a specific number of times in a defined time period to confirm genuine rodent activity. When an infestation is proven, the motorised door opens to allow only target rodent species into the station, preventing non-target pests, animals and unauthorised personnel from accessing the baits and effectively eliminating the rodent.

When these connected devices are triggered, they send alerts to our teams, initiating responses, pin pointing exactly which trap has been triggered and when, so our experts can get to the source quicker.

Digital solutions don't stop at the catch and monitor either, myRentokil, our online platform, collects and stores the data, so customers can see pest activity and trends on their site, while providing them with documentation needed for compliance and audit reports. This helps businesses save valuable time and provides better visibility of pest activity at their site(s).

Lighting the way in fly control with insect light traps

Insect light traps (ILTs), like our highly efficient, energy-saving Lumnia range, can help prevent flies from transmitting harmful diseases. ILTs that use LED lamps for greater attraction of flies are more effective because LED lamps produce intense light in the most sensitive part of the UV spectrum that flies can see. The lower energy consumption of ILTs makes them more sustainable, and well-designed devices, such as those with encapsulated glueboards, will also prevent contamination by containing insect fragments in the unit itself. Gel-based lures and traps can also be used for smaller flies such as fruit flies.

Raising the temperature on SPIs

SPIs are a particular problem in the food industry because they reside in food stocks and damage them, causing businesses financial loss. Businesses need to take multiple measures to prevent SPIs from infesting raw ingredients and finished products.

Targeted heat applications are chemical-free and cause minimal disruption to operations. They can reach deep into all areas of an infestation to eliminate eggs, larvae and adult insects, denaturing the protein in their bodies and causing dehydration by disrupting the waxy layers on the outside of the insect. Research shows that just a few hours at 50°C can eliminate all insects in all life stages without impacting product integrity.

Monitoring of pests

Premises need to be regularly monitored to detect any pest activity and assess whether pest control solutions are working effectively. Regular monitoring prevents smaller problems from developing into bigger ones, with the resulting expense to the business.

Pest control solutions that rely on monitoring

Manual monitoring includes gels that track pest pathways, such as the fluorescent ones mentioned above for rodents, and lures and pheromone traps for insects such as fruit flies, moths, weevils or beetles. The traps need to be checked regularly and the results recorded to ascertain the pest species for elimination.

Digital pest control uses the power of technology, data and analytics to respond to businesses' changing pest control needs. It’s a more effective and efficient way of managing pests because it monitors pest activity in real time, allowing quicker responses to prevent infestations from developing.

For example, PestConnect Optix, our AI-powered pest control cameras, do just that. They are always on watch providing 24/7 monitoring and protection, even in the hardest-to-reach areas. They use sophisticated machine learning to automatically detect, identify and alert our highly trained technicians of pest activity earlier than ever before. These cameras can also be used with devices like RADAR X, a combination of which can provide visual evidence of rodents and effective control measures.

The benefits of IPM

IPM is a long-term strategy that mitigates the risks from pests to prevent them from becoming a constant problem. It’s the foundation of sustainable pest control. It helps businesses identify which pests are a specific threat, the environmental factors that allow them to thrive and the conditions that need to be created to make them unfavourable to pests. Combining methods works better than individual tactics and goes beyond simply eliminating infestations. After all, it’s significantly more cost-effective and easier to prevent infestations than treat them and clean up afterwards.

As pests evolve over time and learn and adapt quickly to their environment, it's important to partner with the right experts. A partner that uses science and innovation and understands your local regulations and standards as well as changing legislation and compliance to help you stay one step ahead of pests.