Food manufacturers: challenges with managing pests in food handling facilities

The pest management process is the responsibility of the food manufacturer, even if some of the components will be outsourced to a professional pest control company

How do you manage pests in your facility? Firstly any food safety programme should have a comprehensive pest management system. This is designed to control hazards from pests at every operational step of the food handling process, including biological hazards such Salmonella. In the USA, a large outbreak of Salmonellosis was caused by contaminated peanut products.

Nine people died and over 700 people became ill. The source of the outbreak was found to be a peanut processing plant in Georgia, which was reported to have had live and dead rodents, cockroaches and birds in the production areas. As a result of the outbreak, consumption of peanut products dropped by nearly 25% in the US and US Federal prosecutors have in February 2013 filed criminal charges against the former owner and several employees of the now bankrupt company. (1)

Any pest management system will contain elements to control hazards from the pests themselves; particularly the hazard of cross-contamination, such as the microbiological contamination risks as described above. The system will also contain elements to control the risk of chemical contamination from pesticides. Finally, as in all formalised food safety systems, there will be requirements for monitoring and reporting. The pest management process is the responsibility of the food manufacturer, even if some of the components will be outsourced to a professional pest control company.

The first priority of any pest management system should be to keep the pests outside. This means proofing the facility. Proofing is perhaps the most overlooked aspect of pest management in food facilities. It is common to find smaller manufacturing facilities with numerous holes in food store walls and rodent bait stations scattered around the floor. Proofing can be overlooked because it is not usually part of the service provided by professional pest controllers. In addition, site maintenance is usually managed by personnel who are ‘outside the loop’ when it comes to food safety and quality issues.

This is a preview of a full article published in International Pest Control – March/April 2013 issue.

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Author: Karen Constable*

*HACCP International www.haccp-international.com. HACCP International is a ‘Conformance Assessment Body’, accredited by JAS-ANZ in the scope of product cert fication for food-safe equipment, materials  and services.

Category: Public health