The food industry has a great responsibility to consumers. In order to be able to offer good quality products they must carry out an exhaustive control, including pest control. Failure to ensure quality products can lead to health problems in the population that consumes these foods. In this way, pest control becomes an important part of the industry. If you want to know more about integrated pest management in the food industry read on.
What is pest control in the food industry?
The pest control refers to those pests that are control measures and processes that must be carried out systematically in the food industry. These measures are carried out in order to to avoid any type of plague in the facilities. That is to say, to avoid the presence of animals or insects that can be the beginning of a plague.
What can pests cause in the food sector?
A pest in the food industry has negative consequences that can affect the health of the population.
- Food being processed will be contaminated by the pest. Pest insects and rodents can contaminate feed in many ways. Through saliva, dirt from your body or urine are the most common forms of contamination.
- Production losses. The pest species, whether rodent or insect, may consume the food being processed. Or even destroy plantations or packaging in storage areas.
- Public health problems. If any of the contaminated food is consumed by humans it can lead to illness.
- Economic losses. The presence of pests in the food industry means a loss of production and, consequently, an economic loss.
How to carry out pest control?
As we have seen, a pest on the premises of the food industry has many negative consequences. This affects not only the employer, but also the technical staff and even the next link in the supply chain. To avoid pests, pest control methods must be determined, as well as some preventive action.
Here are some steps you should take to avoid this type of situation.
- Inspect. A series of periodic inspections should be carried out. In this way the possible plague will be caught in time and will not suppose very big losses.
- Prevention actions. It is necessary that, once the facilities have been inspected, actions are taken to prevent possible pests. Some of these actions may include closing holes for insects to enter or continually cleaning to remove debris.
- Identification and analysis. If a pest has been detected, identify which pest species it is and analyse the onset of the pest. It is an important step as it will determine how to proceed with the elimination, and will help to avoid future pests.
- Pest elimination. Different solutions will have to be carried out depending on the type of species to be eliminated. In any case, chemicals should be avoided as far as possible.
- Monitoring. Once the pest has been eliminated, it must be observed so that it does not reappear.
Programs like the
Cedesa’s agricultural software
make it easy to carry out pest control digitally. With this system it is possible to monitor, receive and process information about the control stations previously installed in real time. With this application you can measure the different levels of pests and / or diseases to carry out solutions to avoid economic losses.
I hope this post about integrated pest management in the food industry has been helpful to you. If you want to know any of our solutions do not hesitate to contact us.
