Moth Control London, Insect Pest Control, Insect Pests, Insect Control
Stored Product Insects
Stored Product Insects (SPI’s) refers to moths and beetles that attack dry stored food products, including nuts, pulses, rice, grains and flour.
There are a wide range of different moths and beetles, although in principle the treatment is similar, as detailed below:
Problems/Risks
SPIs can easily cross contaminate across different food sources, and sometimes in places that you would not immediately recognise as being a food source. E.g. A moth flying out of a contaminated food source in a kitchen, can easily fly into a lounge area and contaminate a dried flower arrangement that contains seeds. Equally, some children’s nursery artwork can contain natural pulses , which also provide a tasty food source to SPI’s.
All contaminated food will need to be thrown away, to prevent cross contamination of other food products; which can be very costly where large amounts of food are destroyed.
Recommended Treatment
For Domestic environments where a problem has already developed:
- Find the source of the problem.
- Remove the source and clean the area.
- Treat with two treatments of insecticide spaced approximately 2 weeks apart.
For Commercial environments, with no previous problems:
- Use monitoring (via non-toxic pheromone, ultraviolet light and food attractant traps) to identify the species.
- Once the species is identified, treat with the appropriate insecticides for that species. Like the treatment for Domestic environments, the two main spray treatments should be spaced approximately 2 weeks apart, depending on the species being treated.
- The frequency of monitoring depends on the potential risks of a site and can be adapted as the situation changes, once infestations have been identified traps can be used to isolate the source of infestation and target treatment.
The more common Stored Product Insects (SPI’s) that are found in London are the Indian Meal Moth, the Biscuit Beetle and the Confused Flour Beetle.
To learn more about stored product insects and to identify which type of infestation you may have, please follow our links;
