SOUTH ELGIN, IL—McCloud Services hosted its annual Pest Invasion premier food industry pest management seminar on April 15, 2014 at the Drury Lane Convention Center in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. The seminar was attended by nearly 350 pest management, environmental health and food safety professionals, and featured a variety of top speakers. As one of the few pest management seminars with a focus entirely on the food industry, McCloud Services announced some key takeaways from the successful event.
“Pest Invasion has become a leading educational seminar helping our industry solve some of the ongoing food safety challenges and changes. We are honored to host such a great event where key information critical to the food supply chain is discussed,” says Chris McCloud, president and CEO.
The central themes of Pest Invasion 2014 were the safety of food supply, regulatory changes in the food processing industry and the pest connections to food safety. Topics discussed at the seminar ranged from the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act, to changes in pheromone monitoring and control options for stored product pests.
Invited speakers included Dr. Michael Doyle of UGA’s Food Safety Center, former Chief Medical Officer of FDA and USDA Dr. David Acheson, Dr. Robert Corrigan of NYC Health Department, Dr. Phil Koehler of University of Florida, Dr. Rizana Mahroof of University of South Carolina and Dr. Ted Granovsky of Granovsky and Associates.
Key takeaways from the conference include:
· The geographical shift in food production (from the U.S. to foreign countries) has implications for food safety if the same safe standards of production are not followed. Many of our agricultural commodities are being produced in China, Brazil and Mexico and the trend will continue.
· A shift in eating and preparation habits. According to research presented at the conference, more people are eating raw foods, unpasteurized foods and using microwaves to cook. Some of these trends pose a threat, as an increased consumption of raw foods increases the chance of food borne illness. Also, using microwaves to cook increases the chance of undercooking and uneven cooking of foods.
· Economically motivated food adulteration, the deliberate contamination of food to increase profits, remains a growing concern. The melamine adulteration of pet food in 2007 was discussed as an example at the conference.
· The potential for UVa bulbs used in insect light traps to extend their use past one year. Dr. Koehler reviewed research at the University of Florida that is performing studies comparing aged bulbs to new bulbs in efficacy for killing flies in both the lab and field.
· New fly bait products will be available soon. Dr. Koehler presented information on new fly bait products, which have been recently introduced to the market and are showing good efficacy against the house fly. Examples of these products include FMC’s End Zone and Syngenta’s Zyrox.
· Non-toxic colored monitoring rodent baits can be useful to determine ranges and travel paths of rodents. Dr. Corrigan explained that even through the normal home range of a house mouse is 15-30 feet, in some cases mice can spread throughout an entire house or building. Having mice feed upon fluorescent dyes in non-toxic “tracking baits” is one way to reveal where mice are traveling based on the location of their droppings.
· Corrigan also emphasized the importance of using analysis initially and on a continuing basis when performing rodent management.
To learn more about Pest Invasion 2014, or to download the speaker presentations from the seminar, visit http://mccloudservices.com/
McCloud Services’ Pest Invasion 2015 will be held April 21, 2015 at the Drury Lane Convention Center.
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