How Rentokil supports food processors

Every year pests cause enormous damage to the food industry. In addition, complex, global supply chains greatly increase the number of food safety risk and hazard points that have to be managed.

At the same time, stringent food safety legislation and demands from consumers are putting greater pressure on food processors to improve standards.

According to BRC food safety audit figures for 2014, ineffective pest control and hygiene programmes were among the principal causes for audit non-compliance.

The data shows that effective pest management, sanitation, cleaning and personal hygiene programmes are essential prerequisites for achieving food safety standards.

Protecting your business

Rentokil works proactively to help prevent infestations, helping to stop the spread of contamination and mitigate the risk of further infestations.

We control risks from pests in compliance with industry best practice, food standards and food safety legislation.

Discover the many ways Rentokil can add value:

• Innovative solutions for food processors;
• Connected, sensing technology with PestConnect;
• Pest reporting & analysis for audit compliance with myRentokil;
• Supporting the food industry - Case study;
• Expert insights for risk mitigation;
• Leading technical capabilities with our people.

Solutions for food processors

As part of Rentokil Initial we can offer:

• Expertise in food safety: we have worked with thousands of food producers, raw material suppliers, logistics companies and food processors worldwide for decades. As industry experts, we know exactly what it takes to protect your business against a wide variety of pests and food hygiene issues across extended and complex food supply chains.
• State-of-the-art pest management: we combine pest-control solutions based on the latest research with advanced technologies. Our solutions are developed in our world-leading research laboratory to ensure you always remain one step ahead of pest and hygiene threats.
• Rentokil IPM: Rentokil offers a unique integrated pest management service to provide a tailored solution for each customer’s needs, based around our ERDM pest management strategy:
  • Exclusion: physical exclusion and pest-proofing of premises;
  • Restriction: removal of elements encouraging the presence of pests;
  • Destruction: quick effective pest control to eliminate an infestation;
  • Monitor: a range of pest monitoring tools give early warning of an infestation for efficient control.

• Critical appraisal: we offer, as standard, a critical appraisal by technicians (exterminators) experienced in food processing before implementing a service plan. This is an expert critical analysis of a customer’s premises based on an in-depth investigation, describing factual observations in conjunction with photographic support. The appraisal allows a customer to see a complete overview of their pest control needs. Our critical appraisals identify pest problems early, helping you to plan measures to mitigate risk of future infestations.
• Food safety auditing support: our customer portal myRentokil provides account management, consolidated reporting and risk profiling, making it easy to provide services across our customers’ local and international network to help you achieve compliance with food safety standards and legislation.
• Leading hygiene services: through our Initial business we are also a global leader in hygiene services. We have a long history of helping food businesses and organisations reduce hygiene risks and ensure healthy working environments.

Expert solutions for pest infestations

The application of practical and scientific experience to provide a tailored solution for each site is the first step in proactively managing the risk of pest infestation and protecting a food processing business.

Rentokil can provide a tailored solution to control and manage risks throughout a food processing plant, including factory surrounds and buildings, deliveries, storage areas, production areas and machinery and equipment.

Online pest control reporting for audit compliance

The myRentokil customer portal is a key solution we offer to our food processing customers.

This pest analysis and management system provides secure 24/7 access to comprehensive pest control records. It provides online documents and analysis and reporting tools that are essential support for the various food safety audits that take place.

The myRentokil portal gives access to real-time data and full understanding of the level of risk associated with pests and hygiene.

• Accurate, detailed records of pest activity: the myRentokil report identifies detected pest species, locations with activity, and site plans of the food processing plant with complete pest activity history.
• Recommendations to help improve the pest management program: a customer can manage open, pending and closed recommendations from the technician, with the ability to provide feedback at each stage.
• Interactive site plans to demonstrate pest management coverage: Site plans show all the devices and inspection points throughout the customer site, illustrating the defences against pest infestations.
• Reports deliver data directly to the customer: Reports can be tailored to customer specifications based on pest activity, recommendations, visits, and material usage. Reports can be automatically generated and emailed to the customer at selected intervals.
• Multi-site tools to manage an entire pest control program: Display a summary of the current status of the pest control program across the complete property portfolio or drill down to detail on individual sites.
• Proof of service: The Proof of Service Report captures all visit details a technician records during a visit.

Discover more about the advantages of data recording & pest management with myRentokil.

Supporting the Food Industry

Watch how myRentokil helps Elopak, an international supplier of paper based packaging solutions for liquid food, comply with auditing requirements. myRentokil is helping Elopak to ensure high quality products for their customers.

Global leader with local expertise

Rentokil is a global leader in pest control, bringing reliable and professional advice to food processing customers worldwide. Our range of capabilities in solutions and services, research and development and regulatory expertise is unrivalled.

Food safety legislation and certification schemes vary from country to country as does pest control and pesticide legislation.

Our international reach and ability to understand local requirements helps us to deliver a consistent service model for food processors globally, across multiple sites and throughout complex supply chains.

Over 12,000 highly trained technicians (exterminators) in 65 countries can respond quickly and effectively to deal with a range of pest control issues for customers at a local and global level.

Rentokil technicians (exterminators) have all the skills and tools required to help a customer meet their food safety requirements and standards for a specific customer location.

Our service offering includes pest control solutions, removing food safety risks and hazards, damage control, and reporting and documentation for auditing and compliance purposes.

Expert insights for risk mitigation

We study the business impact of pests on food processing businesses so you can plan accordingly and mitigate risks to food safety. Our recent research has revealed the biggest risks faced from pests.

Assuring the future of global food safety

We aggregated data for 2015 collected automatically and recorded by our technicians for customers handling food across 51,000 sites in 27 countries. We found a quarter of sites had recorded pest activity, but for businesses in food processing, however, this rose to over 35% (peaking around 45% in November), showing it to be the food sector most affected by pests.

Overall, 52% of incidents related to rodents, 25% to flying insects and 16% to crawling insects. An analysis of recommendations made by Rentokil technicians for the same 51,000 sites showed that 45% of incidents were related to sanitation and hygiene practices and 19% to building integrity. Discover more in our white paper on Assuring the future of global food safety: The role of emerging technology in the mitigation of risks and the advancement of global food safety (2015).

Financial impact of pests on the food industry

In 2015 we also commissioned the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) to survey over 1,000 decision makers on the financial impact of pests on the food industry. This showed the three types of pest with the greatest impact on food businesses:

• Stored Product Insects (SPIs): the most expensive. 60% of businesses reported annual revenue losses of 1–9% due to SPIs.
• Rats: the most destructive. Over a quarter of businesses reported damage to electrical equipment and 20% reported machine downtime due to rats.
• Flies: the most likely to cause illness in staff. Flies cause 64% of businesses to worry about compensation claims and 11% to worry about staff illness.

From the survey, Cebr estimated that in 2014 pest infestations caused an increase in operating costs of £5.8 billion for food businesses in the five European countries surveyed and a revenue decline of £11.8 billion.

Read more about the economic impacts of pests on food processing businesses in our paper: The Business Impact of Pests (2015).

Unique Technical Capabilities

Rentokil has long been at the forefront of providing our technicians (exterminators) with expertise in pest control and conducting pioneering research to find new pest control solutions.

From our first R&D labs, established in 1952, to a dedicated Video Unit producing training videos and documentaries set up in the 1970s, to our Global Technical Centre, we are unsurpassed in our technical capabilities.

Our People

Our 12,000 technicians are expert surveyors and exterminators. They undergo extensive initial training in pests and pest control, gain accredited professional qualifications and are supported with continuous training and personal development.

We have built up an experienced expert service team consisting of:

• high dependency technicians;
• field technicians;
• entomologists;
• field biologists.

Our Global Technical Centre

Our Global Technical Centre is focussed on pioneering innovative new products and solutions, developing new technology and studying pest behaviour.

• research on pest behaviour provides insights for the development of smarter more effective ways to control rodents and insects;
• research on pesticides helps develop quick and safe solutions to minimise the use of toxic substances;
• research focuses on prevention, remote monitoring and added-value information management for reporting of pest activity.

Product Development Team

The Product Development Team contains a broad range of product development expertise. The team possesses expert knowledge in design, development, testing and reliability.

Developing and championing new ideas at the same time as ensuring maintenance and continual improvement of product ranges to meet ever-changing pest infestation challenges.

The team includes experts in:

• microbiology;
• analytical chemistry;
• legislation and regulations;
• product formulation;
• electro-mechanical engineering;
• electronics;
• sensing technology.