Field Notes

Insights for your business

Food And Beverage Processing Articles

Topics: Food Safety , Sanitation , Services

Facility Check-Up: Pest Management and Sanitation During COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic brought operations for many businesses to an abrupt halt, and those that continued to operate likely experienced lower production or disrupted schedules. Balancing the delicate requirements of proper sanitation, and peace of mind for customers and employees, now constitu …

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Topics: Cockroach Control , Rodent Control , Food Safety

Checklist: Integrated Pest Management for Essential Businesses During COVID-19

If your business is designated as an essential service provider and is operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, you’re probably already facing a lot of pressure. Between maintaining a hygienic environment, making a profit and providing good service, pest management may not be top of mind. But whether …

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Topics: Cockroach Control , Rodent Control

Top Pests Threatening Businesses During COVID-19

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing your business and customers to adapt to shelter-in-place and social distancing orders, pest control may be tough for you to manage right now, alongside all your other concerns. But with the reduction of human activity at your business, a larger number of pests are …

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Topics: FoodService

8 Diseases Mosquitoes and Ticks Can Spread at Businesses

Blood-sucking pests like ticks and mosquitoes are more than a nuisance — they can be a health risk. And they don’t just wreak havoc in your backyard; they can also affect your business. The truth of the matter is that mosquitoes and ticks can actually spread diseases to your employees and custome …

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Topics: Sustainability , Mosquito Control , Rodent Control , Fly Control

Can Your Pest Control Outlast the Storm?

The potential costs of just one extreme weather or climate event in the U.S. can exceed $1 billion. With nearly 13 of these extreme, costly events happening annually, many people—and businesses—are left to deal with the aftermath of Mother Nature’s damaging behavior. This threatening weather can bri …

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Topics: Sustainability

Checklist: What to Do After Extreme Weather Events

From tornadoes and tropical storms to floods and droughts, all of these extreme weather events could have a lasting impact once they hit your property. And it can be hard for any facility to battle the potential destruction that could follow. While most facility managers are more worried about how t …

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Topics: Food Safety

How Food Processing Managers Should Document Pest Management Activity

Part of helping maintain a pest-free food processing facility involves tracking your Integrated Pest Management (IPM) efforts. For managers, this means having the right documentation on hand to monitor trend data and determine whether changes to the program are necessary. While this documentation is …

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Topics: Food Safety

3 Forms of Documentation to Have on Hand for Third-Party Audits

Managing a food processing plant is no easy task. To achieve food safety, routine third-party audits are essential. So, how can food processing facility managers maintain a textbook, audit-ready environment? Even with regular facility maintenance and pest management measures, managers may still lose …

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Topics: Fly Control

How to Make Your Facility A “No Fly Zone”

Unlike aircrafts, there should be absolutely no areas in your facility that allow flies to fly— a no-fly zone at all times. Flies are some the nastiest pests in commercial environments, leaving potentially dangerous pathogens as they travel from surface to surface. They breed quickly …

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Topics: Fly Control

Top 4 Flies Found in Food Processing Facilities

Flies are no big deal, right? They’re only about 1/4 of an inch and you can just simply swat them away if they become a nuisance. But actually, a fly sighting in your facility usually means there’s a bigger problem—not something you can just swat away. They carry a wide variety dis …

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Topics: Food Safety

The Top 3 “Hot Spots” Inside Your Facility

As much as you prioritize keeping pests out of your facility, something has slipped past your preventive measures. You’re not alone – food processing facilities have so much to offer pests. From dry goods and moisture to warmth and dark spaces. To help you narrow down your search for invaders, we’ve …

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Topics: Food Safety

The Importance of Equipment Sanitation at Your Food Processing Facility

Your food processing operations are a well-oiled machine. And speaking of well-oiled machines, your processing equipment is not only the lifeblood of your production, it can be the lifeblood for pests without proper attention. Your equipment is an important investment that you need to keep investin …

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Topics: Food Safety

Ingredients Leading to a Pest Problem in Your Food Processing Facility

Imagine yourself in the classic movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. You’re surrounded by giant Cheerios, fruit, nuts and more. While the characters in the movie may have been frightened, this is your food facility from a pest’s point of view – a haven of edible delights. And it doesn’t take much food or …

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Topics: Q & A

Top 6 Prime Points for Pest Entry in Your Facility

It’s not always immediately obvious how pests make their way into your facility. Driven by a search for the basics of survival, pests are pretty resourceful about finding what they need. Fortunately for them, Mother Nature equipped them wings, flexible skeletons …

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Topics: Q & A

Top 3 Pests with an Appetite for Your Facility

All pests are attracted to food, water and shelter. But some are more determined than others. And with an abundance of raw ingredients and food product in your facility, there’s more pressure on you to ensure you take a proactive stance to protect it all f …

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Topics: Q & A

Top 5 Signs of a Successful Food Manufacturing IPM Program

Food manufacturing facilities are subject to exacting standards established to protect human food products from contamination. These requirements necessitate a food safety plan to help you comply with FSMA regulations – a plan that must take pest control into co …

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Topics: Food Safety

Why the Entire Supply Chain Matters When It Comes to Pest Control

When it comes to a pest problem in the supply chain, that one problem can quickly become everyone’s problem. This is why you must consider pest control with a holistic lens – and not just at your food manufacturing facility. Your suppliers, their shipments, your facility and your distributors are …

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Topics: Food Safety

Checklist: Working the Bugs Out of the Supply Chain

As food manufacturing regulations continue to become more stringent, preparedness must remain at the heart of your Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program – especially when it comes to your supply chain. The goal of IPM is to prevent pest problems before they happen, prioritizing facility mainte …

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Topics: Food Safety

The 5 Weak Links in Your Supply Chain

A supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link – it takes only one infested delivery truck to cause a delay in the production of your goods. And just one crack in a wall can invite pests into your food manufacturing facility … and every other facility your goods travel through onc …

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Topics: Sustainability , Bed Bug Control , Rodent Control , Fly Control , Bird Control , Services

Treatment 101: How Orkin’s Options Help You Stay Pest-Free

Along with bugging you, nuisance pests like rodents, cockroaches and flying and stinging pests have the potential to grow into a more serious problem. For some businesses, it only takes a sighting by the wrong person—an auditor, an inspector, a customer or even a patient—to have a financial impact o …

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Topics: Sustainability , Fly Control , Odor Control , Services

The Nitty-Gritty on Sanitation: Products and Services That Help You Keep It Clean

The fast pace of your day-to-day responsibilities requires you to handle many things at once. And no matter what kind of facility you’re overseeing, a strong sanitation program is critical—if overlooked, it can have a domino effect on other areas of your business. While it may seem obvious that e …

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Topics: Sustainability

5 Ways to Lose Points on Your Audit

With vast amounts of product coming in and out of your facility daily, food safety is a top concern - and you don’t want pests breaking and entering to threaten that safety. Pest invaders are not only a nuisance, but can cause product loss, reputation damage for your business and deductions during a …

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Topics: Food Safety

A 60-Second Guide to Acing Your Audit

Every time your food processing facility undergoes a third-party audit, pest control alone will account for 20% of your total score. That leaves little room for error or uncertainty, making it critical to constantly work toward maintaining a pest-free facility. Audit-ready pest control at your fa …

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Topics: Ant Control

Must-Ask Questions to Help Strengthen Your Ant Defense

If ants are marching through your property, you better believe they are ready to go to war. With colonies that can number into the hundreds of thousands of ants, these tiny pests are tough to defeat. (Learn even the smallest details about ants by downloading our free Antcyclopedia). When you call …

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Topics: Fly Control

Fly Activity to Look for – and Prevent – in Food Handling Environments

If you work in a food handling environment like a restaurant, grocery store or manufacturing facility, flies can deal a blow to your bottom line. These pests seek the food, water and shelter that your business provides – and their presence can lead to serious consequences. Once inside, they can cont …

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Topics: Food Safety

How to Prepare for your Next Audit

Third-party food safety audits are a serious matter for food processing facilities. Just one low score can drive companies that purchase your products to lose trust in your business. With so much riding on a good score, it’s important to understand how to be audit-ready. (To learn more about the new …

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Topics: Food Safety

Sanitation and Storage Best Practices: Test Your Knowledge

Proper sanitation and storage practices are crucial to food safety and effective pest management. These are preventive controls that are essential to your food safety plan – learn more about what should be included by downloading our free Food Safety Modernization Act Special Report. Failing in eith …

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Topics: Food Safety

Is Your Pesticide Storage Audit-Ready?

Your audit is quickly approaching, and you’ve made sure your documentation is in order, plus checked all the pest control hot spots around your facility. The third piece of the pre-audit puzzle is pesticide storage. While pesticide should not be stored on site if the company has a contracted pest ma …

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Topics: Food Safety

How Well Do You Know Stored Product Pests?

As essential as your ingredients are to your business, they’re also important to the stored product pests for which they’re a primary food source. These pests are capable of causing major damage to stored goods resulting in lost product and profits. These pests are fast breeders, so it’s important …

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5 Frequently Asked Questions About the Food Safety Modernization Act

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) created in 2011 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is old news to the food processing industry. However, because the required compliance dates were years away from the time FSMA was created in 2011, the implementation of FSMA has seemed like a distant …

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Topics: Food Safety

A Guide to Your Facility’s Pest Control Hot Spots

Staying on top of maintenance and sanitation is a constant challenge — especially when it comes to food safety. So we’ve teamed up with NSF International to provide a series of free tips that can help ensure your facility is protected from head to toe against pests and the diseases they can carry. …

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Topics: Food Safety

How to Avoid Poor Documentation

In food safety, the margin for error is wafer-thin. And with the number of factors—both internal and external—that can ultimately make or break your success, it can be difficult to stay on top of things. But pest control is not something you should let slip through the cracks. From failed audits …

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Field Notes

Field Notes