Whether in a commercial or residential account, resolving kitchen pest issues requires a collaborative effort between the PMP and customer. Your technicians can do everything right, but if your customer ignores the need for sound sanitation practices or repairs, pest problems will continue to plague the kitchen. Communication is key: Customers who are well-informed are much more likely to do their part.
With commercial customers, communicate the critical nature of staff education. Employees who understand the implications of pest issues – customer dissatisfaction, food contamination and even the potential for the establishment to be shut down – are more likely to adhere to procedures put into place to hold pests at bay.
Among residential customers, homeowners are usually very cooperative; they want their home to be pest-free for the long term. In multi-unit accounts, your conversations will be with property managers for the most part; they should then share pertinent information with tenants.
Here are some of the important areas you or your technicians should discuss with your commercial customers:
• Sanitation – In commercial kitchens, management needs to create a culture where sanitation efforts become automatic, by providing clear instruction in every area of keeping the kitchen clean. Sanitation is critical in residential kitchens, too: Residents need to understand the importance of cleaning up crumbs, spills, grease, etc.
• Exclusion – A closed-door policy is important: Open or propped doors and windows are invitations to pests.
• Clutter control – Cardboard boxes and other clutter in storage rooms and around the house serve as harborage for pests.
• Trash management – Foodservice employees need to be taught proper trash handling procedures: how to get trash from the kitchen to the dumpster, how often to take out the trash and how to keep trash receptacles clean. A cleaning schedule for trash cans and dumpsters (at least once a week) should be established to prevent small fly breeding and other infestations. Residents need to establish appropriate trash-handling routines as well.
• Inspection of incoming products/packages – Eliminating pests at the point of entry begins with an inspection of all packages that come into the kitchen. Whether bags of produce or boxes of paper towels, these packages can harbor cockroaches and other pests.
• Repairs – Your technician is likely prepared to seal cracks and small holes, but where larger repairs are needed – to walls, floors, pipes, equipment, etc. –these issues must be reported to the customer. The customer needs to understand why each repair is important to resolving their pest issues.
• Pantry storage – Residents especially need to understand the need to rotate products and limit the amount of time they keep them on the shelf. If they plan to keep products susceptible to pest contamination for any length of time, they should store them in glass or plastic containers rather than bags or boxes.