Managing Pests With Good Manufacturing Practices

“Redefining pest management responsibilities to include input into sanitation, maintenance, and even production is not as absurd as it may seem,” said Dean M. Stanbridge. “We instituted such a management program at several facilities, both large and small, achieving a success rate ranging from 60 percent to a total elimination of methyl bromide for 5 years.”

Stanbridge gave his report at the Annual International Research Conference on Methyl Bromide Alternatives and Emissions Reductions in Orlando, Florida, December 7–9, 1998. He is vice president of operations, Professional Pest Consultants, Inc., Ontario, Canada.

Instead of a reactive approach to eradicate pests, Stanbridge advocates a proactive stance. Proactive controls are considered expensive and risky. Because of this, they’re not widely used. Also, its much easier to eliminate pests with fumigants. However, the fumigant that is primarily used to disinfest structures is methyl bromide. And the use of methyl bromide is being gradually phased out over the next few years, with a complete ban in 2005.

“Understanding a pest’s biology is the first step in controlling it,” he reported. “Therefore, we must identify the pests we’re dealing with.”

Case in point: Stanbridge was approached by a baked goods processing facility that wanted to eliminate their use of methyl bromide because they knew it had been declared an ozone depletor and would eventually be banned.

Stored-product pests in this facility included confused flour beetles, black carpet beetles and Indianmeal moths. German cockroaches and house mice were secondary pests.

“We decided to first identify areas in the facility that would support the biology of these pests, then aggressively attack those areas. To gain immediate control, we concentrated on better sanitation and reducing the number of places the pests could thrive,” Stanbridge reported. “Once control was complete, we developed maintenance plans to keep pests eradicated.”

Making changes to food plants can be very complex. “We knew that our success with eradicating these pests without pesticides would depend on help from the plant mangers,” Stanbridge said. “Therefore, we included not only the plant manager, but managers of maintenance, sanitation, quality assurance, pest control, and production. And we worked as a team.”

It was vital to get these people involved because the maintenance manager would be responsible for equipment that might need to be modified to eliminate places the pests could reside. This person was also involved in anything pertaining to the structural aspects of the facility and in instituting any changes that might be recommended.

Cleaning recommendations would be implemented by the sanitation manager, who also identifies and cleans areas and equipment that may harbor insects.

The production manager would allow the time required for good manufacturing practices, and the plant manager carried through on any recommendations and reviewed requests for equipment and structural changes.

“It’s fairly easy to incorporate pest management principles because some degree of good manufacturing practices already exists in most food-processing facilities,” Stanbridge pointed out. “But identifying critical areas where pests persist isn’t easy because it isn’t static. It is ever changing.”

Part of the baking facility was built 100 years ago, and 20-year-old steel beams support the newer packaging and warehouse areas. There were no walls to separate many areas, making the job of pest control even more difficult.

“Because of the plant’s age, we knew that structural changes would be very expensive. But what we suggested had several benefits, which justified the money spent to implement our plans,” Stanbridge said.

Stanbridge’s team suggested that the plant install a wall between the flour silo/sifting and mixing. This would not only reduce airborne flour’s settling on high surfaces, but it would also reduce insect food and breeding sources. And, it would reduce the number of times these areas needed to be cleaned, resulting in a savings for maintenance. Fewer cleaning times meant less disruption to production. Food product safety would be enhanced since no insects or old flour would be falling from high surfaces.

Suggestions for equipment were primarily to locate and eliminate areas that might harbor insects. For example, the team found that a certain piece of equipment simply needed to be turned over to keep flour from accumulating. This accumulation was drawing insects and providing breeding sources. Here again, food safety was enhanced and the need for constant cleaning was reduced, saving maintenance costs and production time.

“We found that the most difficult factor lay in changing employees’ habits,” Stanbridge said. “Although the least expensive to implement, these changes take the longest time to effect.” Staff training will be required in many cases.

Implementing good manufacturing practices may need to be supplemented by some pesticide applications, Stanbridge said, but these should be kept at a minimum.

Three months after suggestions were presented to the owners of the baking facility, the management team saw changes being made. And the full plan of instituting good manufacturing practices was implemented in 6 months.

“That was 5 years ago and the baking facility has not used methyl bromide since,” Stanbridge reported. “The key here is time. It takes time to turn time-honored practices around. We can’t wait until methyl bromide is banned and then start. We must start now.”

Last Updated: January 12, 1999