Restaurants, commercial kitchens and other businesses in the food service industry have a responsibility to protect public health by preventing food contamination and transmission of disease from pests in their building. In addition, food safety legislation mandates that businesses handling food exclude pests and prevent contamination of food by taking effective measures.
Contrary to food sanitation requirements, pests can also have an impact on the restaurant sector through the financial costs of replacement food and equipment, loss of reputation and litigation from the public and regulatory authorities. With this in mind, it’s important to understand the biggest pest threats to a restaurant so you can adopt a proactive approach to pest control, protecting your brand, your staff and your customers. Here are the top two pest threats:
- Rodents
As a key player in the category of urban pests, rodents such as mice and rats are one of the most common pests that are rampant in restaurants, cafes, commercial kitchens and other food service businesses.
They are adaptive creatures attracted by strong food supplies and do not venture far from their nest to feed. So, as you can guess, the restaurant makes a perfect place for them to take up residence. Rodents are able to reproduce very quickly and rapidly increase their population given the abundant supply of food, because the number of litters they are capable of producing and maturing. For a Pest Control Essex, visit a site like Pest Control Essex through BPC.
Dangers of rodents in a restaurant
Rats and mice can be a big concern for the restaurant industry because they are known to cause damage to both the building equipment and electrical equipment due to their nesting, digging and gnawing habits. In addition, they can also cause loss of stock through not only eating but also spoiling food containers and packaging. They have also been known to spread various diseases such as Salmonellosis that can contaminate food and equipment through their urine and faeces.
- Cockroaches
Cockroaches are the most common type of crawling insect that infest restaurants and other food-handling business. They cause a wide range of problems due to their small size, the huge variety of things they will consume, their fast reproduction and diseases they may carry.
Cockroaches come out especially during the hours of darkness to look for food, sheltering in during the day. They take refuge in dark places such as holes, cracks, gaps, drains, sewers, in the equipment and furniture and all those dark recesses that give just the right level of warmth and humidity. Such areas are also those that are hard to reach by using the usual method of cleaning and sanitizing.
The impact of cockroaches in restaurants and commercial kitchens
Cockroaches can be a big concern for the restaurant for a variety of reasons. For example, they pose a risk to food safety as they are known to carry large amounts of disease-causing bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli that can easily contaminate the food items, packaging, machinery and equipment through their urine, faeces and saliva. In addition, they are also known to trigger asthma attacks at both the dinner and the staff for their droppings and shed skin that contains the allergen.