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EuGeNe

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Posted 28 February 2008 - 01:44 AM

Dear All,

It was quite a while since i posted. I have a unsolvable problem, houseflies! These pests have been bugging me for several years, and the auditors are cheesed off raising the same CAR every audit.

The biscuit manufacturing plant at my workplace covers from mixing of raw materials through baking and ends with cartoning. We have installed air curtains, plastic strip curtain and dark rooms fitted with UV insectokillers at every entrance into the plant. There are also many UV insectokillers all around the premise.

I was just wondering why the flies are so hardy and resilient. By the way, im from Malaysia so its tropical over here and the flies are hyperactive all year round. How unfortunate.

Anybody has any experience in this to share?



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Posted 02 March 2008 - 12:47 PM

Hi Eugene,

You might want to try including housefly pheromone trap near the UV insectokillers. Might attract and trap more houseflies near the entrance and prevent them from moving forward into the production.

Or maybe you have tried it without any good results?

Drugstore beetle is one of my previous company's problem. They attack the spices and can cause a serious case of infestation within the warehouse. The pheromone trap not only helps to reduce their numbers, but also let us know if there is a case of infestation, when a sudden increase of beetle counts are observed.

Since there may be different types of files, you might want to identify their species before selecting a suitable pheromone. Or maybe you can use fruit scents to attract them as well? Not sure.

Well, hope this tiny bit of info helps...



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Charles.C

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Posted 02 March 2008 - 06:40 PM

Dear Eugene,

My sympathies. Can be a real pain.

?No.1 – Why so many flies around ? Normally no obvious target >> not so many flies ? Sometimes due to too attractive frontage / surroundings >> Need some insecticide spraying. Sometimes due to specific location which is not so easy to change.

If a result of delivery of raw materials area, do you hv a separate, fully enclosed unloading bay or, if one open end / plasic curtains, hv existence of positive outward pressure (eg from fans) ? Hv once inspected a fully enclosed room + a conveyor belt used to transfer materials through the internal wall into the main production area. Depends on available space and resources.

Similarly it is preferable to avoid any other direct outside / inside interfaces,eg better to have a curtained antechamber with insectocuters inside and even more effective to have an additional screened corridor prior to the production area. This is often auto-provided in one location by the design of the lockers / handwashing etc layout.

Insectocuters are normally less efficient in daylight, must keep on 24 hrs though I am sure most bakery product set-ups are well aware of this.

I hv (rarely) seen internal spraying used for other products in very difficult situations although this obviously demands considerable precautions / preparations, particularly with a product like yours. Maybe legal restraints (and auditor sensitivities).

Some people claim flies are more repelled by yellow plastic though I hv no proof of this.

The actual trap numbers / worst case locations / daily sightings will obviously influence the comments also.

If you/ve considered all these and other factors already, maybe time for the professionals although their recommendations tend to be extremely expensive IMEX but ........

Rgds / Charles.C


Kind Regards,

 

Charles.C


EuGeNe

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Posted 10 March 2008 - 09:47 AM

Dear Charles & Hongyun,

Thanks for your ideas and feedback.

Hongyun, I see that you are from the same country as i am. Does the pheromone traps work well for you? I dont have much of a problem with other types of pest, only houseflies.

I must admit that the design of the faculty is slightly problematic. For bosses who intend to set up a food factory, i strongly recommend planning your infrastructure intensively before building the premise. It will be very costly and frustrating to make renovations afterwards.

We do internal spraying on desperate times (when we dont have options left), but it is also done with much caution. This activity is not recorded to avoid complications.

Existing insectocutors are functioning 24hours, since the facility is operating day and night. At certain time of the year, fly counts are at satisfactory level, yet at certain months, its an infestation!

Well, i guess if i cant beat em, i might as well join em. Anyone fancy a set of compound eyes?

Regards,
Eugene



Hongyun

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Posted 15 March 2008 - 12:46 PM

Hi Eugene,

The pheromone trap works. It attracts the bettles and they are stuck on a piece of glued cardboard. But I guess it works better as an indication of infestation of raw material and spices. Luckily we do not have problems with housefiles, they are usually stopped by the insectocutors/air curtain.

Anyhow, you can try the housefly pheromone on two to three month trial to see it's effectiveness before deciding if it works in a long term.

Alternatively, maybe you can set one day every week to do an internal fumigation on months that are really heavy with flies. Preferably on a sunday, when there are no production going on. At least fumigation has no residue compared to spraying insecticides?



"World Community Grid made it possible for us to analyze in one day the number of specimens that would take approximately 130 years to complete using a traditional computer."

- Dr. David J. Foran, professor and lead researcher at The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.




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Simon

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Posted 26 March 2008 - 08:23 PM

I must admit that the design of the faculty is slightly problematic. For bosses who intend to set up a food factory, i strongly recommend planning your infrastructure intensively before building the premise. It will be very costly and frustrating to make renovations afterwards.

We do internal spraying on desperate times (when we dont have options left), but it is also done with much caution. This activity is not recorded to avoid complications.

Existing insectocutors are functioning 24hours, since the facility is operating day and night. At certain time of the year, fly counts are at satisfactory level, yet at certain months, its an infestation!

Good advice EuGeNe. I guess the old adage "You cannot inspect quality into a product - it must be built in" applies to a food safety system. Anything less than a good sanitary design of a building meant for food processing will always leave you trying to make amends for it's shortfalls.

A question on Insectocutors. As they are meant to attract pests don't they just encourage them inside? :dunno:

Regards,
Simon

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GMO

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Posted 16 April 2008 - 09:56 PM

I've had flying insect issues before but not as severe. The way I've dealt with it has been removing the attractants outside the factory e.g. dirty food containers. Also consider if you have electric fly killers near doors, it might attract them inside.

Something to look at could be any standing / stagnant water inside or outside or any waste because if you solve where they are breeding, you'll cut back the issue hugely. From a personal point of view as well, in the UK they only pick up rubbish once every two weeks. This means in summer, food waste can be sitting around for 14 days. Once I missed a collection and oh my god did I get an infestation! I solved it by spraying fly killer on the maggots and moving the bin further away from the house to prevent an infestation inside.

You seem to have a lot of controls at the doorways but could you reduce the number as well to make them easier to control?



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Posted 17 April 2008 - 07:22 AM

From a personal point of view as well, in the UK they only pick up rubbish once every two weeks. This means in summer, food waste can be sitting around for 14 days. Once I missed a collection and oh my god did I get an infestation! I solved it by spraying fly killer on the maggots and moving the bin further away from the house to prevent an infestation inside.

:off_topic:

I don't know if you saw The One Show on BBC 1 last night; they were talking about food waste on the consumer side (1 out of every three bags of shopping goes to waste) and even more waste on the retailers side. The amounts are quite staggering and when we look at food inflation and food shortages (starvation) in the world, it's not right.

It showed a couple of new age hippie type guys who live in a caravan and go shopping for food at night (when everywhere is shut). They go rummaging in the bins behind their local Tesco and fill their boots. The booty they got for free was amazing, yoghurts just going out of date, dented milk cartons, split multi packs; they got all sorts of stuff. Sure it has it’s risks especially on things like frozen stuff, but they seemed very skilled and the waste has only been in the bin for a couple of hours or so. If I heard rightly these people are called Freegans. :thumbup:

Simon

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GMO

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Posted 29 April 2008 - 08:50 AM

Our little infestation last year was after I'd cooked a duck. I normally boil all bones before disposing of them to make stock. This time I didn't really have any need for duck stock and had no meat left so threw it away. I've noticed when I do make stock, I don't get flies because there is so little meat left. I'm fairly frugal but I know I still throw out some food which could be eaten.





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