How to get rid of stored product pests

Stored product pests often live within food for human and animal consumption. In order to control insects within food, the food must be removed, destroyed, or treated in a way that presents no hazards in its end use.

Professional services from Rentokil can help your business with effective pest management, ensuring minimum disruption to your operation and full compliance with health and safety or other food legislation obligations.

Vigilant inspections and monitoring

Stored product pest infestations in a facility can appear in a small area, such as a bag or pallet of raw material. However, if left undetected, infestations can disperse rapidly throughout the premises. Therefore, vigilant regular inspections and monitoring are an integral part of managing stored product pests.

• Inspect incoming raw materials - Incoming stock should be inspected in an area away from the primary product storage for any evidence of live pest activity. If found, it should be immediately rejected and returned to the supplier.
• Use of stored product pest pheromone traps - Traps and lures must be widely used for monitoring and locating localized infestations inside facilities. They provide information on the pest severity, the species of an infestation, and the effectiveness of treatments. The use of mating-disrupting lures has become increasingly effective for Indian meal moths in facilities.
• Install light traps - Light traps in all internal areas of the premises help to control and monitor flying insects. Commercial traps utilize ultraviolet light to attract some but not all stored product pests. Data recorded can also help monitor stored product pests. Pheromone lures can be an addition to the trap.

In addition to our inspections, we recommend that your staff perform routine monitoring to ensure early detection of any pest problem.

Effective control using approved pesticides

If pest activity is found, control methods will involve small isolated treatments. If the infestation is extensive and dispersed throughout the property, it may be necessary to treat the entire premises using space treatments.

Preventing product contamination is our number one priority. Some of the services we provide include:

• Dusting - Certain dusts can be used with pesticide properties. Some of these are mechanical in nature, which erodes the cuticles of the insect, causing desiccation.
• Precision spraying - Targeted spot crack and crevice treatments can be helpful to arrest localized stored product pest occurrence in a structural environment. The success is dependent on adequate access and cleaning of loose or impacted residues. Only approved materials can be used with deference to prevent product contamination.
• Aerosol-generating system - Space treatment of a processing or storage environment with ultra-low volume, finely atomized droplets containing approved pesticides can help manage and prevent cross infestation. Thermal or cold foggers (.5-20-micron droplets) or, in some cases, misters (20-80 micron droplets) can be used to dispense aerosols of approved pesticides.
• Exterior infestations - Where exterior infestations have been identified, it may be necessary to apply an approved insecticide treatment to insect activity sites outside buildings and storage facilities. Treatment of observed infestation with residual insecticide can reduce stored product pests.
• Fumigation - The use of gaseous substances (fumigants) that are toxic to and kill all life stages of stored product pests in raw material or product. Fumigation must be done in gas-proof enclosures to contain the gas long enough to achieve mortality.
• Controlled atmosphere - In some situations where a fumigant (gaseous substance) cannot be used, the infested raw material can be placed in large heat ovens. All stages of all insects are killed by heating the material to the core 140°F for 30 minutes.
• Grain protectants - Prevention and control of stored product insects must be considered from harvest to storage and processing. Grain protectants involve the application of insecticidal dusts and sprays directly to grain while in storage or transportation such as shipping vessels or in silos on farms and mills. Since most grains are used for human consumption, there are strict guidelines that control the use of grain protectants. This can provide long-term protection. The application is based on the natural decline of the grain protectant (pesticide) residues to low levels during the transportation or storage of the grain, so that later it can be processed into edible foods.

Call Rentokil at 1-855-633-6260 or contact us online to see how our effective solutions can keep stored product insects out of your business.