A way to get rid of small fruit flies

Hi All,

Anyone can shed some light on this as we are struggling to get rid of small fruit files on displayed fruit products in salad bar even after having Haccp certified insectocutor near to it.

Somebody said to lighting a candle near to fruit display can reduce these small flies. BTW is that ok from the food safety point? 

Please guide me...

Dv8

Dear DV8:

we has this problem before .try to find the root cause for this ,

do you have issues with cleaning in the displaying place ?

if the refrigerator used for the displaying have any gaps or opens can lead to the entry of these flies . 

is the insectocutor effectively working. are it`s lighting , sticky have any issues or there are great number of flies on the sticky decease the ability to catch others.

finally I thinks this candle is not acceptable any way from the food safety view. 

Best Wishes

Ahmed

Hi Ahmed,

Since it’s an open buffet display, cleaning is perfect from our end. Further, we do have an effective efficient insectocutor near to display but still can’t get them all.

Anyways, candle helps us to reduce the level of flies for some extend. Nevertheless, thank you for your prompt reply as always.

Have a great day!

Dv8.

Dv8,

I am familiar with this problem. You may be surprised at the solution. I was a restaurant manager for close to a decade. There is a certain tiny fly like a fruit fly that was always an issue unless you took certain precautions. This fly (like most flies) was attracted to the smell of decomposition. In short, the problem is in your floor drains. The flies are feeding off of and attracted to the smell of decomposition coming from your drains. What you need to do is instate a consistent program of treating all drains in the affected area with bleach at least once a day. I usually would do it at night after shutting down the restaurant. After a couple days the flies will dissipate.

Plastic Ducky's idea is great.  :spoton:

If you need something to remove them quickly, this worked last year at my home.  I totally eradicated the fruit flies inside, though it took about 3 life cycles to get rid of them all.  We live next to a woods, and have all kinds of critters that come in, so we had a huge number of them.  Plus I think that the people who lived there before us (the previous year) were not very clean.  :shutup:

1. Take a wide mouth jar (like what  spaghetti sauce comes in.) 

2. Put about an inch of cider vinegar (safe around food) in the bottom. 

3. Put a piece of plastic wrap over the top, secured with a rubber band.

4. Punch a lot of holes in it, large enough for the flies to easily enter.  This was important, because it needs bigger holds than you would think.

5. Set in an area where you see a lot of the flies.

The cider vinegar approximates the smell of rotting fruit, so the flies will be attracted to it.  They will crawl through the holes and fly around in the jar, but they're pretty stupid and most can't get out.

Eventually they will fall into the vinegar, where they will be pickled and will not decompose.  So they will present little or no food safety issue.

You can change the vinegar periodically, for sanitary reasons, but none of this presents a hazard to food.

The life cycle is 40 to 50 days, so even if you catch them all, some will have laid eggs and will hatch.  So you will need to keep it around for several months.

This was almost magical in my home.  It may not totally get rid of all of yours around a salad bar, but combine it with treating the drains, it will help out a lot. 

And it's better than a candle.  :biggrin:

Martha

Hi Ducky,

Thank you very much for your valuable suggestion.

I was the under impression that bleaching is potentially harmful to the drainage system and environment as well.  However, when nothing ever seems to get better; let me have a try and I feel perfectly confident that should work perfectly.

Hi Martha,

Thank you for giving me such wonderful ideas to take back to my chemistry class. I appreciate the way you elucidate the home made fly trap. Indeed I will try in my home too. 

Since we have a band standard to follow on display products, we cannot keep this trap near to food products; but far for sure. Let me apply ducky’s point and yours together to get of fruit flies.

Have a blessed day,

Dv8.

Hi Dv8,

Don't forget to identify cracks in building in your root cause analysis. Cracks in the floor can be filled with caulking. Receiving doors that are left open or air vents that are not closed properly can allow entry of insects.

Thanks.
amppyr

Thank you Amppyr for letting me know about the possibility of the building cracks.

Let me start a detailed inspection of air vents too.

I am agree with @MWidra. I did the same homemade traps to get rid of fruit flies. This helped me a lot. I was planning to appoint nassau pest control but I my wife friends told about home made trap by which all can stay away from flies. 

I too face this problem.To get rid of small flies you may cover your fruits with cloth.This will definetely help you out.

This was a very insightful post. I had experience using sticky traps in an indoor hydroponic farm setting, but have not had to consider the challenge of fruit flies in a retail setting. I know this is an old post, but I enjoyed reading the recommendations suggested here. Thanks, everyone.

We had similar issues in our production areas. You will need to deep clean ALL areas. including drains. 

We put vinegar/sugar traps in areas to see where captured more activity.

These are areas we concentrated more cleaning, It also helped us identify source of contamination.

It was old equipment that was no longer in use, but needed to be dismantled and cleaned. 

Daily sanitizing of drains is a must. 

Hope this helps! and good luck.