Food Processing Pest Management

Q&A with Western Entomologist

1. What's the most interesting pest control job you've completed for a local business?

Stored product pests in a food warehouse

2. What was the pest problem found during the inspection?

Cigarette beetles - October/November 2020

3. What impact do these pests have on businesses in this industry?

Cigarette beetles can be very problematic because they can often be brought in undetected, or enter through open doors and windows, and establish quickly in areas of warehouses that are infrequently visited. With time, their populations grow and spread to different areas of the facility. This makes managing them more challenging.

4. How bad was the infestation before service began?

Prior to the beetle program's initiation, the infestation was localized to one area of the warehouse, where several bags of expired inventory were stored on racks. But it was beginning to spread to another area with inventory slated for shipment to buyers.

5. What treatments and/or other steps were taken to eliminate the infestation and prevent future pest issues?

We ascertained the extent of the infestation with sex pheromone traps and recommended that the client discard all expired inventory that was suspected to be food for the beetles. Numerous visual inspections of at-risk products were also conducted on a weekly basis. The trapping program indicated gradual decline of the beetles’ numbers over several weeks, and the warehouse has had no significant increases in beetle activity since December 2020. Insect light traps have been installed at key positions to monitor insects at open doors, and additional pheromone traps are deployed throughout the other areas of the warehouse where the beetles were not active. These are placed for early warning.