Pest Control for Delis, Bakeries and Grocery Stores on Long Island

Food businesses are where roaches want to be. The American cockroach is most frequently found in restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries and other businesses where food is prepared or stored, according to University of Missouri Extension.

The German cockroach gets in a different way. In commercial establishments, German cockroaches are found in cardboard containers, wooden boxes and under pallets (Oklahoma State University Extension). Those are the exact things that come off a delivery truck. A case of product gets wheeled into the stockroom, the box sits for a week, and whatever was living in it moves onto your shelves. See our German cockroach profile for what to look for.

The rule is simple. Unpack the day it arrives. Break the cardboard down and get it out of the building. Do not let pallets sit in a back corner.

New York's Sanitary Code requires food service premises to be free of insects and rodents and their breeding conditions (10 NYCRR 14-1.160). Breeding conditions start in the stockroom. These habits help:

• Store stock off the floor and away from walls, so you can see and clean behind it.
• Rotate stock so older product moves first and nothing sits for months.
• Sweep under shelving and racks, not just the open aisles.
• Clean up spilled flour, sugar, seed and pet food the same day.
• Fix drips under sinks, coolers and prep areas.
• Keep the back door closed when you are not receiving.

Pests need food, water and a place to hide. A stockroom with clean floors, dry corners and nothing pushed against the wall gives them very little of any of it. Mice follow the same rules. Our house mouse profile covers the signs.

Roaches and mice are not the only problem in food retail. Meal moths and stored product beetles are pantry pests, and a bakery or grocery shelf is a large pantry. Treat any infested package as a sign to check the product stored around it.

Pull what is affected, clean the shelf and restock with fresh product. Rotating stock so nothing sits for months keeps the shelves from becoming a long term home.

Read the pantry moth and beetle profile for identification, and see our pantry pest service for how we treat it.

• Inspection. Receiving area, stockroom, shelving, prep and bakery areas, around coolers, and the trash area.
• Treatment where activity shows. Bait and crack and crevice treatment, placed where the pests are.
• Rodent stations where needed. Checked every visit.
• Notes for your staff. What we saw and what to fix before the next visit.
• A written record of the visit. For your files.

We schedule around your hours, before or after you open, Monday through Sunday. For roaches, see our cockroach service. For mice, see our mouse service.

1. Weekly while there is active roach or mouse pressure.
2. Every other week once activity drops.
3. Monthly once activity stops.

The schedule follows the pressure in your store. If activity comes back, the schedule goes back up. Call (516) 509-6001 for a free quote.