If you are responsible for the operations of a production plant, then it’s crucial that you understand the importance of pest control. Furthermore, you must be on top of your pest control management in order to maintain the quality of your product and save the plant money.
An infestation could cost you a fortune in contaminated materials and impending pest control services. Additionally, it will also damage your brand’s reputation, as well as lead to a loss of orders, customer revenues, and trust. It is far more expensive to fix your reputation or your customer’s trust in your product than it is to keep your plant pest-free.
Why A Pest Infestation Is Detrimental For Your Company
Pests can affect your company in a plethora of ways. They can damage buildings, cause cross-contamination, infect your products, and more. The potential impacts include:
- Losing trust from your customers, industry leaders or suppliers
- Damage to your reputation and brand
- Expensive batch recalls or damage to products
- Production lines needing to be shut down, which leads to financial loss
- You could be held legally liable for compensation if harm should come from your products due to pest infestation
- Fines or legal action from regulatory bodies or public health authorities
The Importance Of Flying Insect Pest Control
While there is a huge variation in different flying insect pests, as well as what attracts them to infest your building in the first place or how they breed, they do still share many similar traits.
The biggest issue with flying insects is how they operate. They carry pathogenic microorganisms and move between contaminated food sources and clean areas. This means they can easily spread bacteria or filth on their bodies.
Flying insects actually present the greatest pest risk to production facilities. They capitalize on the various materials, environment, and potential breeding conditions within your facility.
Flying insects are attracted to:
- Fermenting sugars
- Oils
- Carbohydrates
- Decaying proteins
- Vegetable matter
The above ingredients are frequently used in digestible medicines.
Flies that you need to watch out for in your production plant include:
- House flies
- Fruit flies
- Bluebottles
- Drain flies
- Cluster flies
- Flesh flies
The Importance Of Cockroach Pest Control
Different cockroaches prefer different environmental conditions to thrive.
The German cockroach prefers the wetter humid conditions usually found in equipment-dense production areas.
Whereas the larger American cockroach likes the warmer conditions. These conditions are found in drains, sewers, and waste storage areas.
Lastly, the tinier, brown-banded cockroach can only survive in heated buildings. They burrow around electric motors, light switches, and electrical appliances. They enjoy feeding on materials with high starch content.
Here is why you need to worry about a cockroach infestation at your production plant:
- Cockroaches can carry disease-causing microorganisms such as Staphylococcus, Salmonella, Listeria, and E. coli
- Cockroaches eat mold, fecal matter in sewers, and animal carcasses. This can then be transmitted to your production area.
- Cast skins and egg cases contaminate products and packaging
- Droppings and shed skins contain allergens, which can trigger asthma attacks in densely populated areas in a production plant
The Importance Of Stored Product Insect Pest Control
Production plants often handle starches, sugars, or other natural herbal products used in food products. Unfortunately, beetles, weevils, moths, and mites often infest these ingredients.
They can easily enter paper, cardboard, plastic, cellophane, or foil packaging. The insects infiltrate through minuscule holes smaller than the human eye can even see.
If you notice any small beetles, moths, larvae, pupae, or silken webbing on your storage bins, you have an infestation. It’s also important that you are constantly on the lookout for holes, larvae, or webbing on the outside of packets or bags. You should also be inspecting beams and windowsills for the same signs.
The Importance Of Rodent Control
Mice and rats can easily enter buildings and other facilities through holes the width of a pencil. Even the most modern, tightly secured facilities can fall victim to rats and mice. Rodents breed extremely quickly, causing a wide range of damage to both products, materials and the building itself.
With 13 species of mice and four species of rats found in Canada, rodents cause property damage, spread disease, and constantly seek shelter in businesses.
The house mouse prefers to nest in dark, secluded areas where there is little chance of disturbance. Elsewhere, Norway rats prefer to burrow in the soil. Rodents are strong climbers, but did you know that rats are also strong swimmers?
Boasting a thirst for destruction, rodents use their continuously growing incisors to bite through cables and wiring in homes and businesses, and their claws to feed and dig with relative ease.
The Importance Of Pest Control To Protect Your Reputation
It is crucial that production facilities maintain extremely high standards of pest control and pest prevention. Contamination will not just spoil your products, but it will cost your business big time in the short and long-term.
Don’t wait until a pest infestation ruins your product. Implement consistent pest control measures instead. The importance of pest control in your production facility cannot be overstated. It’s important that your entire team working on the floor know what to look out for and how to react if they spot an infestation.
Terminix Canada offers commercial pest control services to protect your production plant. We offer both one-time services, as well as annual memberships, so we can quickly react and help you solve your pest problem as soon as it arises.