Cockroaches and rodents in professional kitchens: the health requirement

What the regulation actually expects

EU hygiene rules require food business operators to put in place procedures based on HACCP principles and to have adequate pest control arrangements. They do not prescribe a single method: they require a risk analysis specific to your site, appropriate measures, and evidence that those measures are applied.

In practice an inspection looks at four things: the baiting plan and its physical presence on site, dated visit reports, safety data sheets for the products used, and the operator's qualification. Those are the four elements we assemble and keep current.

One point is often overlooked: the plan has to be alive. A folder assembled three years ago and never reopened is worth, to an inspector, about as much as no plan at all.

The problem areas in an accommodation business

The breakfast room and its pantry concentrate the risk: crumbs, cereal dispensers, coffee machines, open bins and floor-level storage. German cockroaches find warmth, water and food there, and shelter inside appliance motors, worktop joints and false ceilings.

The waste room and the delivery bay are the rodents' way in. A poorly closed room, uncovered bins or a worn door threshold are enough to establish a population that will then climb through the ducts to the guest floors.

Then there are the food stores: storing directly on the floor, against walls and without rotation makes serious inspection impossible. A store organised on shelving pulled away from the wall is, in itself, a pest control measure.

Treatment compatible with continuous service

Against cockroaches we favour bait gels applied in discreet spots, away from food contact surfaces. They act through the population and require neither closure nor evacuation of the service, unlike blanket spraying.

Against rodents, bait stations are secured, numbered and marked on the plan, with a consumption record at every visit: that record is both a population monitoring tool and a document for the register. The most cost-effective element, though, remains exclusion — sealing openings, door thresholds, grilles — because it addresses the cause.