The Risks of Rodents in Food Facilities

Rodents are public enemy No. 1 for food and beverage processing facilities. They’re crafty, crawling with contaminants and a real threat to public health, not to mention brand reputation and a company’s ability to operate.

“Cross contamination is a major concern, and any kind of rodent activity in a food or beverage processing facility has broad-sweeping implications that can shut down a facility,” said John Harvey, Truly Nolen’s commercial division sales manager specializing in quality assurance environments. “If auditing agencies detect any rodent fecal matter, urine or signs of rodent presence, they can stop production, and that is extremely costly.”

When asked to rate the pests of most concern in Quality Assurance & Food Safety magazine’s 2024 State of the Rodent Market survey, 42% of respondents nailed rodents as the biggie, followed by 35% for small flies and 23% for cockroaches.

In the rodent family, mice are most worrisome (52%) compared to 16% who say rats are the primary issue.

“Everyone thinks about rats as being the real big deal, but for food processors, the mouse is the greatest threat,” said Bobby Corrigan, owner of RMC Pest Management Consulting in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y., and author of “Rodent Control: A Practical Guide for Pest Management Professionals.”

Mice can wriggle through miniscule openings, some as small as a quarter of an inch — the width of a pencil eraser.

THE DIRT.

Now, some ugly truths that explain why those 28% of respondents who said rodents are not a concern might reconsider.

The CDC lists 35 viruses, parasites and bacterial diseases either directly or indirectly carried by rodents. Some have innocuous names like Babesiosis with harmful health effects like attacking red blood cells. Tularemia might sound like the name of a Caribbean island, but it triggers a grotesque and possibly life-threatening skin cyst when the bacteria enters the body to do its nasty handiwork. And of course, there’s plague.

“Research has shown, in 24 hours, a mouse can put down 3,000 microdroplets of urine — picture that,” Corrigan said. “Now, picture a family unit of seven to 10 mice.”

You can smell it.

“A person who is not super familiar with the scent may walk into a storage room and think someone forgot to clean the mop,” he said.

During that same 24 hours, a mouse can leave behind upwards of 125 fecal pellets, Corrigan said. (Indeed, the truth is ugly.) “One tiny kernel can hold hundreds of millions of viruses, and that is no exaggeration,” he said.

Corrigan is a rodentologist and research scientist steeped in this space, having designed city-wide control programs for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

“The goal in any facility is ‘zero mice,’” Corrigan said. “I tell people, ‘Don’t underestimate the situation because it’s a little mouse. It’s a big threat.’”

AWARENESS FOR EVERYONE.

Because food and beverage facilities are often full of nooks and crannies that offer appealing harborages for rodents, efforts to exclude, monitor and control rodents must be persistent and practiced with diligence.

Respondents to QA’s rodent survey mostly reported a steady number of rodent sightings (55%) compared to last year, though 9% noticed an increase. Thirty-six percent said rodent sightings decreased.

Mice and rats mostly congregate outside of facilities, which represent 75% of sightings, with other high-pressure spaces including warehouse and storage areas, trash areas and garbage bins, employee break rooms and on incoming goods or in the dock area.

Survey respondents largely reported success with their rodent control programs, with 98% saying, “Yes, our protocols work.” Just 2% of participants indicated their facility has no rodent control program in place, underscoring an industry-wide understanding of the serious risks rodents pose to businesses, their employees and consumers.

Even packaging is a concern.

Damage due to gnawing introduces another layer of risk, said Pat Hottel, technical service manager at Rentokil. “Any physical damage to the integrity of the packaging can result in contamination and open it up to pathogens, including spoilage,” she said.

A zero-tolerance rodent and pest policy at Kessler’s Food Services in Camp Hill, Pa., is a direct response to the serious nature of these intruders and their potential costly impact. “The culture of our company is to make sure we are keeping all eyes on it,” said Quality Assurance Director Amela Romanic.

She notes an increase in exterior rodent activity in summer, and shipments are always a concern. Sightings logs, rigorous and regular inspections, employee training and a thorough prevention and control program have yielded success. There’s an always-on-duty approach because Romanic and employees at Kessler’s recognize the negative potential.

“We make sure everyone is involved and aware of the risk of rodents and pests,” she said. “And we train them on what to look out for so they feel comfortable reporting any sightings.”