Pest Management
Trending Analysis
or Assessment?
T
here is some confusion in the
food industry about the terms
trending analysis and assessment
when it comes to Integrated Pest
Management (IPM). All too often, when
reviewing what are supposed to be an-
nual pest management assessments I am
instead presented with a record that simply
indicates an affirmation of the number of
rodent monitoring devices installed in and
around the facility. Companies also tend
to consolidate recorded rodent activity
as verification that the trending indicates
they have sufficient coverage for the facility
in question. Essentially, the information
presented often is a collection of words
and stats that represent nothing in terms
of the status of the IPM program.
An assessment is the task exercised to
assess or judge a program or event. The
IPM assessment needs to be inclusive of
a host of information gathered from the
facility in order to make a reasonably ac-
curate judgment about how the program
14 JULY/AUGUST 2013 AIB UPDATE
?
The two practices are
distinctively different
activities, but they
depend on each other.
by Al St.Cyr
is meeting the needs of the facility. Trend
analysis is a practice of collecting informa-
tion to attempt to spot a pattern as a means
of predicting future events. These are two
distinctively different activities that depend
on each other. You cannot do accurate
trending unless you have good data from
an analysis of a situation or data collected.
And you can’t defend the trending data
unless you have an accurate assessment of
the situation to support your trending find-
ings. Each must be clear and defendable.
The IPM assessment is a critical
review of the food plant as a whole to
identify existing pest issues and conditions
or practices that could lead to pest issues.
The assessment is not just an equipment
inventory or a means to report how many
rodents were caught or killed. It should
provide a reasonable answer as to why
pests were present in the first place, so very
proactive actions can be taken to avoid
such future activity.
When IPM assessments are approached
with a knee-to-floor viewpoint they
do not take long because the only area
the inspector is looking at is the space
between his/her knees and the floor. He
will not see stored product infestations in
the warehouse or processing area and will
not recognize when mice have migrated
or been delivered to the upper levels of a
racking system or are living in the motor
compartments of processing equipment.
She will never discover that the source of
the blow fly population is actually located
on the roof and that they are entering the
plant because filters in three of the roof
intakes are missing. Nor will they realize
that the weekly fogging treatment for fruit

flies that are breeding in severely damaged
monolithic floor coverings has displaced a
large German cockroach population that
is now widespread throughout production
areas. These are all outside the knee-to-
floor vantage, resulting in the expansion
of pest issues and loss of valuable time to
implement corrective action programs.
One of the cornerstones of the FDA’s
Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)
is a very proactive preventive control
program to avoid food safety issues. Ad-
ditionally, the FDA has indicated that in-
spections are the way to assess compliance
with the new requirements. Integrated pest
management has been based on these two
concepts for years, yet lately it seems to
have been reduced to an annual equipment
inventory program.
A well-done pest management assess-
ment is inclusive of all areas of a facility.
It takes into account what is around the
structure and how neighboring operations
could impact the food plant. Having a
marsh or woodland directly adjacent to
the plant presents a different set of oppor-
tunities than being located in an industrial
park or a residential area. Each of these
settings needs to be evaluated for the steps
that need to be taken to minimize the risks
stemming from the environment.
Too often plant grounds are not
reviewed with a critical eye. There is a
tendency to simply accept that the trees
adjacent to the building and mulch beds
have to be tolerated while fighting an
ongoing battle with occasional invading
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Pest Management
A CORNERSTONE OF FSMA IS A VERY
PROACTIVE PREVENTIVE CONTROL PROGRAM
TO AVOID FOOD SAFETY ISSUES.
insects inside the plant. These issues, plus
a general lack of building maintenance, are
the reasons for the pest issues, and this will
not change until permanent alterations
have been made. The assessment findings
should lead to determination of the root
cause for the problem and science-based
facts will direct the recommendations for
treatment. The data collected will allow
for trending analysis and clearly prove
that the pests are present due to structural
issues, not poor performance from the pest
control service provider.
The entire interior area of a food plant
presents challenges to pest management
professionals. However, some areas (like
the raw materials warehouse, lunch and
locker rooms, and production areas that
are difficult to reach for cleaning and
maintenance) are more vulnerable to pest
issues than others. The IPM professional
needs to recognize the vulnerabilities and
pay close attention to them during the
assessment process. A thorough inspec-
tion provides the information needed to
determine if your program, in conjunction
with the plant’s activities, is limiting the
potential for pest activity.
Beyond the physical assessment, an-
other important element of the process is
a total review of records generated from
the service provided. This provides a docu-
mented history of pest activity and prior
treatment recommendations. Trends in
activity should be noticeable. If the records
indicate that specific monitoring devices
are frequently active and the physical site
assessment reveals a poor door mainte-
nance program in that same area, the data
will strengthen the recommendation to
take immediate action to repair the doors.
The data can also be used to measure
if previously implemented recommenda-
tions have resulted in a positive impact.
For example, if the data indicates 30%
pest activity in a specific area before the
recommendations were implemented, the
post-implementation data might reveal
that changes made have eliminated any
sightings or records of activity.
Assessments are a critical part of a
healthy food plant IPM program. Regu-
lar, detailed physical assessments of the
facility provide data that is compared to
pest service records to determine the con-
nections and look for trends occurring in
the facility. If links can be made between
documented events and observations
made during the assessment, you will have
a strong argument for making recom-
mended improvements. AIB
The author is Head of Food Safety Education,
AIB International.
AIB UPDATE JULY/AUGUST 2013 15
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