After many months of your Hospitality Business being closed things might have changed inside. Pests may have had a chance to enter your premises. We are reminding businesses about the importance of remembering preventive pest control when getting ready to reopen. After the last lockdown, one restaurant had a stark reminder of the risks they face when reopening after a long period of inactivity. Luckily, they had called our pest control technician was on-hand to talk through the situation with the environmental health officer (EHO), which helped resolve the problem and the owner was happy with the result. Needless to say he has put a proper Pest Control Prevention Contract in place now!

Lockdowns have affected us all in different ways but perhaps the most heavily impacted industry has been hospitality. Social distancing has meant many restaurants have either had to close for the whole period or reopen as takeaways. With reopening beginning in June, and many restaurants now preparing to welcome customers back into their premises, it is time for them to take a serious look at their preventive pest control strategy.

We understand the challenges these restaurants have been through; to have survived the Covid Lockdowns has been a real achievement. We also know how difficult it is for restaurateurs to get their businesses to a point where they can reopen. Last week, several Chefs revealed how difficult they are finding it to recruit staff for reopening. Many of catering staff have returned to their home country or have found jobs in industries with preferred opening hours. Skilled Staff are simply not available to fill the places.

The challenges of recruiting and training suitable staff and the difficulties associated with getting a business up and running after the closed period mean some restaurateurs may understandably take their eye off the ball when it comes to pest control. However, as fines recently given to a restaurant shows, this is something you simply cannot afford to do.

A word from the FSAI

Dr Pamela Byrne, Chief Executive, FSAI (FSAI.ie) has emphasised the importance of vigorous pest control systems which should be facilitated by appropriate food safety management systems across all food businesses in Ireland.

“It is disconcerting that we continue to see the need to take enforcement action for insufficient pest control issues. While the number of Closure Orders was low, it was disappointing to see Orders relating to the presence or evidence of rodents in food premises. Food businesses must ensure that robust pest control systems are in place to achieve satisfactory hygiene standards and provide customers with safe food. Incidents involving rodents in food preparation areas reflects poorly on the majority of food businesses who operate to high standards of food hygiene.

Food business owners are responsible for ensuring best practices in relation to food handling and food storage in their business. Failure to do this puts their customers at risk. It’s also important to comply with rules on food labelling, which ensure customers are fully informed about the food they buy,” Dr Byrne concluded.

A restaurant near us started preparing to reopen last week and was visited by the EHO. In a spirit of full disclosure, the EHO was preparing to close them down but our technician was able to visit the site within one hour. Once he had talked through the situation with our technician and the restaurant’s owners, it was clear to him that all necessary remediation strategies were in place and that the situation was being dealt with correctly.

There isn’t a restaurant in the world, just as there isn’t a farm, factory or school, that doesn’t have the potential for a rodent problem. Restaurants offer shelter, food, water and warmth - the very things rodents will look for. For more information on Rodents read HERE

The demands of reopening are huge and it can be easy to overlook pest control but, as the experience of this restaurant shows, this is simply something you can’t afford to allow happen as you can be closed on day one if you are found to have a problem.

I am very pleased that our technician was able to be onsite within an hour and he could then talk to the EHO. However, this situation could have been avoided if we had given the site a thorough inspection before it reopened. The EHO would have then seen that the correct pest prevention measures were in place and there would have been no reason to close the business down.

We have considerable experience in helping pubs, restaurants and takeaways implement efficient and cost-effective preventive pest control strategies. To learn more, contact us on 1800377377.

Our Standard Pest Control Contract

Our Standard pest control contracts are suitable for both commercial and business premises where regular visits are carried out throughout the year or over the winter season, EPC offer a selection of on-going contracts to choose from.

• We offer a number of different type of contracts.
• We deal with all areas of Pest control and Bird control.
• Suitable for Hospitality, Property Management companies and Food Production companies.
• All of our technicians are fully trained and hold PMU licenses.
• We can comply with customer audit requirements.
• Online reporting is available.

Full information HERE

#PestControl #Rodents #Hospitality #business #hospitality #restaurants #hotels #food #publichealth #propertymanagement #FSAI #pestcontrolservices #Rats #Mice #HoldFirm #Reopening