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How Proactive Pest Control Protects Business Continuity · PEST PROSpectives

• 0:08
  Richard Piet: I'm Richard Piet.
• 0:09
  Richard Piet: Welcome back to PEST PROSpectives, the official podcast from the pest pros of Michigan.
• 0:16
  Richard Piet: Today, pretty serious today, we're talking about corporate pest control.
• 0:21
  Richard Piet: What, little pests that dress up in suits and act all corporate?
• 0:26
  Richard Piet: No, but they show up in corporate locations, business locations.
• 0:32
  Richard Piet: And what kind of difference does that make from a pest control perspective?
• 0:38
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorentino's back with us from the Pest Pros of Michigan, assistant certified entomologist, to talk to us about this.
• 0:47
  Richard Piet: That's a title there, Tony.
• 0:49
  Tony Sorrentino: Hey, Richard.
• 0:50
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, absolutely.
• 0:51
  Tony Sorrentino: That's why they shortened it to ACE.
• 0:53
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, I guess I should just say ACE.
• 0:55
  Tony Sorrentino: Just ace.
• 0:56
  Tony Sorrentino: Um the commercial pest control is is uh um widely discussed.
• 1:02
  Tony Sorrentino: Um, people are always in commercial environments, and it isn't just about killing bugs, it's about protecting processes.
• 1:09
  Tony Sorrentino: When pests interfere with food safety, product integrity, or sterile environments, the impact goes beyond nuisance.
• 1:18
  Tony Sorrentino: It becomes a business continuity issue.
• 1:20
  Tony Sorrentino: Sure.
• 1:21
  Tony Sorrentino: Pest control is part of quality assurance.
• 1:24
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 1:24
  Richard Piet: Think about that.
• 1:25
  Richard Piet: If there's a pest that's going to interrupt the flow of business, this is a significant threat to the operations of the business and thus uh a uh uh perhaps more complicated situation than the average uh residential B removal or something like you guys did at my house not long ago.
• 1:50
  Richard Piet: So uh let's talk about what makes it different from your perspective.
• 1:54
  Tony Sorrentino: I talk a lot about IPM, and if anybody's been on here, that's integrated pest management.
• 1:59
  Tony Sorrentino: It's IPM with accountability, it's reducing chemical use and getting to the root cause of what's happening and then stopping that from happening to get uh facilities to a proactive place.
• 2:14
  Tony Sorrentino: We're operating under some pretty serious standards, and you'll hear a lot of I I call it alphabet soup, but it's a lot of acronyms.
• 2:22
  Tony Sorrentino: So here's some little breakdown on that.
• 2:25
  Tony Sorrentino: The FSMA is the Food Safety Modernization Act, and the focus is on preventing issues before they ever threaten food safety.
• 2:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Oh, that sounds good.
• 2:35
  Tony Sorrentino: The AIB is the American Institute of Bakers, and those are the auditors that show up that really care about sanitation and risk.
• 2:45
  Tony Sorrentino: That's our food service.
• 2:47
  Tony Sorrentino: And then uh people are usually pretty familiar with the FDA and the USDA, and those are agencies that regulate certain processed foods and the handling of pharmaceuticals.
• 3:01
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 3:01
  Richard Piet: So we're really talking about a significant uh situation, but by extension, really meeting those standards.
• 3:09
  Tony Sorrentino: Right.
• 3:10
  Tony Sorrentino: It's aligning with the rules that keep products safe and keep companies operating.
• 3:15
  Richard Piet: So what's high risk in this situation?
• 3:17
  Richard Piet: A high risk pest?
• 3:19
  Tony Sorrentino: High risk pests are going to be the ones that can shut down a facility quickly.
• 3:23
  Tony Sorrentino: We're looking at stored product pests, rodent infestations because of their ability to traffic pathogens from septic areas to aseptic environments.
• 3:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Cockroaches and flies are the same thing, because I mean, that's where they live, is in filth.
• 3:40
  Tony Sorrentino: So there's a a high propensity for transference of contaminated materials.
• 3:47
  Richard Piet: Yeah, that's no joke.
• 3:48
  Richard Piet: And uh, when you're looking at a situation like that, I presume then it becomes a sense of urgency to try and deal with this as quickly as you can.
• 3:57
  Tony Sorrentino: A lot of these pests are highlighting structural or environmental vulnerabilities that could literally shut down production, food, pharmaceutical.
• 4:07
  Tony Sorrentino: Like these are sensitive environments.
• 4:09
  Richard Piet: Right.
• 4:10
  Richard Piet: And you talk about how these organizations set standards for these kinds of things.
• 4:14
  Richard Piet: I presume then that when you're involved, then there's some compliance and documentation and so on that has to happen as part of your process.
• 4:23
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, absolutely.
• 4:24
  Tony Sorrentino: We use a lot of different methodologies to ensure that we're meeting up with the standards.
• 4:28
  Tony Sorrentino: We use strategically placed monitors, detailed trend reporting.
• 4:33
  Tony Sorrentino: We offer sanitation insights and root cause correction so issues don't repeat.
• 4:38
  Tony Sorrentino: Anyone can go out and set traps, but our job is to control conditions and there's no reason for them to be there in the first place.
• 4:45
  Richard Piet: Right.
• 4:45
  Richard Piet: And we certainly have talked about the idea that uh there is some kind of root cause, uh, some kind of avenue that uh is allowing the pests to infiltrate.
• 4:58
  Richard Piet: So uh this is no different, right?
• 5:01
  Richard Piet: You you're still looking for the access points and uh trying to deal with those.
• 5:05
  Tony Sorrentino: Right, absolutely.
• 5:06
  Tony Sorrentino: You don't just walk through and spray baseboards, you're identifying structural vulnerabilities, gaps, cracks, crevices, things that could pose a threat to the discipline of the inside of the structure.
• 5:18
  Richard Piet: Yeah, and your attention to that is just as significant as that of a residential structure, right?
• 5:24
  Richard Piet: You're still looking for the things that cause, yeah, that cause the issues and then trying to correct those.
• 5:29
  Tony Sorrentino: Yep.
• 5:29
  Tony Sorrentino: The difference in high accountability facilities decisions uh have to be data driven.
• 5:34
  Tony Sorrentino: The results have to stand up to inspection.
• 5:37
  Tony Sorrentino: We do apply a lot of the same methodology to the residential accounts that we service as well.
• 5:44
  Tony Sorrentino: There's it's just not documented as well.
• 5:46
  Tony Sorrentino: The process doesn't change, it's just how well we tell the story of what happened.
• 5:50
  Richard Piet: Yeah, when there's accountability, extra accountability involved, then it's a different kind of uh situation.
• 5:56
  Richard Piet: And speaking of that, something happens like this at a business, particularly if it's shut down.
• 6:02
  Richard Piet: Now you've got a business owner or operator who's on you, right?
• 6:05
  Richard Piet: They need immediate response.
• 6:07
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:08
  Tony Sorrentino: We've had it happen where where, you know, and I'm not gonna name any names, we've had it happen where the health department has come in or some of the other monitoring agencies, some of that alphabet soup I was talking about, have shut down facilities due to rodent activity or cockroach infestation, or there's a unsolvable fly issue, no matter what they do, they can't get a hold of the flies.
• 6:30
  Tony Sorrentino: So they call in an ace, they call in an expert, and then we get to the bottom of it, and then we get their facilities to a proactive place.
• 6:37
  Richard Piet: So when that happens, I presume when you're dealing with the business owner or operator, you you've got to work together, right, to try and get at it quickly.
• 6:46
  Richard Piet: You're gonna articulate to them what to expect, I'm presuming.
• 6:51
  Tony Sorrentino: Oh, absolutely.
• 6:52
  Tony Sorrentino: It's all about communication.
• 6:53
  Tony Sorrentino: Pest management is a partnership where we can work together.
• 6:57
  Tony Sorrentino: We have trained eyes that are aware of the situations inside and outside of your home that are looking at it from a different perspective.
• 7:06
  Richard Piet: Give us an example, Tony, about a situation that you were involved in that uh resulted in the solution that business owners want when this happens.
• 7:17
  Tony Sorrentino: We had an ongoing issue.
• 7:18
  Tony Sorrentino: Uh it was at a food handling plant here in the southwest lower Michigan area, and they had drain flies and Ford flies, and it just started, and they couldn't figure out where they were coming from again with the flies, and and nobody knows where they're coming from, nobody knows what where did they come from, where did they go.
• 7:36
  Tony Sorrentino: What happened was I went out personally.
• 7:40
  Tony Sorrentino: This is the value of having an associated certified entomologist on staff, because I'm gonna look at it from an even different perspective from our certified field technicians that are trained, but were trained to a higher degree, a higher level of understanding of the biology and the behavior of the pests.
• 7:56
  Tony Sorrentino: Why are they there?
• 7:57
  Tony Sorrentino: What's causing them to be there?
• 7:58
  Tony Sorrentino: What was the attractant that led them to be there in the first place?
• 8:01
  Tony Sorrentino: And how are we gonna solve this?
• 8:03
  Tony Sorrentino: The forward flies and the drain flies are often a teller of underlying plumbing or sanitation issue.
• 8:09
  Tony Sorrentino: Foreign flies are also called filth flies or humpback flies, and drain flies look, uh, when you look at them, they look like uh they have Mickey Mouse ears.
• 8:18
  Tony Sorrentino: That's one of the major identifiers.
• 8:20
  Tony Sorrentino: They're fuzzy, they call them drain moths or drain flies.
• 8:24
  Tony Sorrentino: Whatever they are, where they breed is in the gradu, and I lovingly refer to that as that gunk that's in the built up in the drains.
• 8:33
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah.
• 8:34
  Tony Sorrentino: And they live there and they breed there, and their larva and their eggs crawl around in that, and they then fly out of that and come land on my pizza.
• 8:43
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah.
• 8:44
  Tony Sorrentino: Or uh where I'm preparing food.
• 8:46
  Tony Sorrentino: It's even more sensitive in a food handling facility or a commercial kitchen or pharmaceutical handling manufacturing facility.
• 8:55
  Tony Sorrentino: Like these are critical pests.
• 8:57
  Richard Piet: So an ace can see that pretty quickly and say, okay, this is the kind of fly.
• 9:03
  Tony Sorrentino: There was a break in the plumbing that was sub-floor.
• 9:06
  Tony Sorrentino: We identified it with a smoke test, and um, there was smoke coming out from under the subslab.
• 9:12
  Tony Sorrentino: There was a cast iron pipe that was under the concrete floor that was busted, and they would have never known about that.
• 9:18
  Richard Piet: It wasn't on anyone's radar until the pests discover it.
• 9:24
  Richard Piet: Yeah.
• 9:24
  Richard Piet: So, in a way, those flies helped tell a story that had to be dealt with that maybe they wouldn't have known about until it had gotten worse.
• 9:33
  Tony Sorrentino: It would have been an ongoing issue.
• 9:34
  Tony Sorrentino: No amount of chemical application would have remediated that situation.
• 9:38
  Richard Piet: Wow.
• 9:39
  Richard Piet: All right.
• 9:40
  Richard Piet: So someone's listening to this, they own a business, they want to file away some information for the future, or maybe they're dealing with some kind of an issue now.
• 9:50
  Richard Piet: What's the first couple of things you want them to think about as they're getting ready to reach out to you?
• 9:57
  Tony Sorrentino: Commercial properties, commercial property owners, or the decision makers for these facilities, food handling, pharmaceutical, health care, schools.
• 10:08
  Tony Sorrentino: I want clients that are seeking services to really do an internal audit on the level of satisfaction that you are achieving with your current provider.
• 10:19
  Tony Sorrentino: I would love to have an opportunity to come out.
• 10:22
  Tony Sorrentino: I would love to do uh on-site critical initial facilities assessment and determine uh any chinks in your armor, so to speak, any structural vulnerabilities, any anything on site that could lead to a shutdown.
• 10:39
  Richard Piet: And well ahead of time.
• 10:41
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:42
  Richard Piet: Yeah, want to try to get to any kind of issue uh before it's an issue.
• 10:46
  Richard Piet: So there's a reason to reach out before there's a situation with which you have to deal that threatens.
• 10:54
  Tony Sorrentino: Right, before it turns into a business continuity issue.
• 10:57
  Tony Sorrentino: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:58
  Richard Piet: Continuity is what we want, what we need.
• 11:01
  Richard Piet: Don't want those interruptions.
• 11:03
  Richard Piet: All right, so we've given you some things to think about there as it relates to corporate pest control, and the pest pros of Michigan are prepared to help you with that.
• 11:13
  Richard Piet: Details in the show notes.
• 11:15
  Richard Piet: Just click through and make yourself known and reach out.
• 11:19
  Richard Piet: Also, want to invite you to subscribe to the Pest Perspectives episodes.
• 11:24
  Richard Piet: We've had several of them now.
• 11:25
  Richard Piet: You'll get alerts when those come available.
• 11:28
  Richard Piet: Tony Sorentino, Ace, with Pest Pros of Michigan.
• 11:33
  Richard Piet: Thank you.
• 11:34
  Tony Sorrentino: Thanks, Richard.