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Cockroach Control in Sensitive Environments, Part III
14 Dec, 2009 By: Dean Stanbridge Direct to You: Food-HandlingAs we explored in the first two parts of this series, managing food-processing cockroach infestations can be a challenge. In Part One, we concentrated on defining the insect infestation zones as prioritized in a food-processing environment. In Part Two, we looked at implementing traditional control strategies by utilizing the newly assembled "Pest Team." In Part Three, we need to consider what kinds of opportunities there might be within the food plant to implement "pesticide alternative" strategies.
Implementation of the strategies we've discussed has permitted your new food plant Pest Team to develop a mutually beneficial relationship — and some positive results. Once you've proven that in-depth exploration of equipment and processes can provide some success, pesticide alternative strategies are generally more widely accepted.
Many of today's food processing environments are under increasing pressure to keep production running while integrating preventative maintenance (PM) programs into the daily routines of the facility. Because the pest control program falls under these same time restrictions, we are challenged to develop new control techniques that will enable production to run while we work.
'Pesticides are BAD!'
Such headlines are commonplace in today's society, so imagine the pressure that food plants face to ensure that they aren't adding risk to their food products. This means more than ever, food processors are considering pesticide alternative strategies. As responsible professionals, we need to think outside of our traditional safety net and consider strategies that might reduce the need for the application of pesticides that require the plant to be non-operational.
Cockroaches are very adaptive insects, but they still have biological limitations that make them susceptible to temperature extremes. In a "zone" oriented program, our newly implemented control strategies should have greatly reduced the size of the repeated infested zones. It's much easier to consider pesticide alternative strategies when the infected areas are small.
For example, let's consider a bakery that has had an ongoing cockroach infestation. Our Pest Team investigations, subsequent control strategies and ongoing monitoring have determined that the focus of the issue is one very old dough mixer on one of the five production lines. They've managed to clean up issues in the peripheral areas, but production time restraints have made it impossible to have the time available to completely tear apart this mixer and pinpoint the infestation source. The plant can't shut down right now, meaning we can't apply pesticides.
After putting forth all of this effort to reduce the population and pinpoint the source, do we just give up? No way! We just need to start thinking outside of the box.
What non-chemical strategy might work to control cockroaches in this situation? Because we've learned many things about this facility through the other experts on our Pest Team, we know that the mixers in this facility have built-in chillers to cool the dough and thus slow its rising process while it's mixing. Maybe during the next cleaning process, we could keep the chillers running — making the mixer ice cold and freezing the cockroaches. Sound a little far-fetched? That's how out of the box we need to think if we're going to be successful at these approaches.
Realistically, we're not going to be able to freeze the cockroaches, but maybe the cold would force the cockroaches to migrate into some very small spaces within the mixer. We can then effectively apply carbon dioxide (CO2) and freeze the zone into which they've relocated. The simple use of infrared thermometers can help us to find those migration zones and pinpoint the freezing with CO2.
Alternatively, heat could produce the same desired result by tarping the mixer and utilizing the plant's steam lines to run a small steam coil heater, raising the temperature under the tarp to a lethal level for the cockroaches.
Of course, these strategies take the cooperation and expertise of many of the people on your Plant Team to implement. But our job is to kill the cockroaches, not apply a pesticide. These alternative strategies may seem slightly more expensive to implement, but if the other lines of the plant can keep running while they're being executed, the lost production savings far outweigh the cost of the alternative strategy.
Regardless of your reason for looking for a new approach to pest control within food facilities, the Zone Prioritizing and Pest Team approach has been adopted by hundreds of facilities worldwide. It has been proven to reduce pesticide use, increase communication and improve overall control results.
I like to consider it the evolution of integrated pest management (IPM). Food processors I've spoken to like to refer to it as sound progressive strategies that increase control while reducing risk.
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