Grocery stores: keeping insects off the routes without spraying the aisles

Fruit flies around the produce, cockroaches in the stockroom, pantry moths in dry goods: grocery stores hold everything insects are looking for. A single sighting on the shop floor costs more than the insect is worth, in customer trust, in reviews and in an inspection report. In storage it means stock written off.

Why the usual answer is a poor fit

• Residues: most insecticides cannot be used near food, and the precautions needed around open produce make them impractical on the shop floor.
• Short-lived: a spray deals with what is there today. Without something that keeps working, the problem returns and the visits multiply.
• Disruption: closures, extra cleaning and safety protocols around chemical treatments cost trading hours.
• Reputation: a pest problem in a food store is visible, and it travels fast.

How Repeltec works

The formulation is water-based.

Where to apply it in a store

• Produce areas: the frames, legs and undersides of display units. Not the produce, and not surfaces the produce touches.
• Storage and backrooms: racking uprights, wall junctions and the floor around pallets of dry goods.
• Entrances, delivery doors and checkouts: thresholds, frames and the base of the counter.
• Waste areas: walls and floor edges around bins and compactors.

Apply it to structural surfaces and perimeters, away from food and food contact surfaces, and record it in the cleaning log with the other chemicals in use.

Planning the cycle

Wet cleaning and scrubbing take the coating off, so schedule the treatment after the deep clean, not before it, and treat an edge again once it has been scrubbed.

Staff follow the label and the safety data sheet, and treated areas are released once the surfaces are dry. The treatment sits inside the store's pest control programme, next to monitoring and proofing. It does not replace the contractor.