Is Your Pest Control Really BRCGS Audit-Ready?
If you operate a BRCGS audited food manufacturing, processing, storage or packaging site, you almost certainly already have pest control arrangements in place.
But having a pest control contract and having an audit-ready pest management programme are not necessarily the same thing.
Effective pest management within a BRCGS audited environment needs to be proactive, properly documented and maintained throughout the year. When an auditor asks to see evidence relating to pest management, the information they need should be current, accurate and readily available.
So, here’s a useful question to consider:
If your BRCGS audit were tomorrow, could you confidently produce everything relating to pest management without having to chase your pest control provider first?
Audit-ready pest management means your risk assessments, site plans, monitoring records, service reports, trend analysis, recommendations and supporting documentation are current, accurate and readily accessible throughout the year.
The seven questions below provide a quick way to stress-test the service you’re currently receiving.
As you read through them, consider whether your answer is Yes, No or I’m not sure. More importantly, we’ve included a simple practical check for each one, so you can test what’s happening on your site rather than relying on assumptions.
What Does Audit-Ready Pest Management Look Like?
Being audit-ready shouldn’t mean preparing your pest control documentation in the weeks leading up to an audit.
It should be the natural result of an effective pest management programme operating throughout the year.
That means understanding the pest risks specific to your site, carrying out scheduled inspections, maintaining appropriate monitoring systems, identifying preventative actions and keeping clear records of activity, recommendations and actions taken.
Your pest control documentation should reflect what is happening on your site, not simply provide a collection of paperwork to produce when an auditor asks for it.
For businesses operating within BRCGS audited environments, you can find out more about how our BRCGS pest control services support year-round pest management and audit readiness.
So, how does your current pest control provision measure up?
1. Is Your Pest Risk Assessment Current?
Your pest risk assessment provides an important foundation for your pest management programme.
It should take into account the nature of your operation, the building, surrounding environment, pest pressures and other factors that could affect the risk to your site.
But sites change.
Production processes can change. Storage areas move. Buildings are altered. New equipment or services are installed. External conditions can change too.
Your pest risk assessment therefore needs to remain relevant to the site as it operates today.
If it hasn’t been reviewed for some time, consider whether it still accurately represents the risks you’re currently managing.
Quick check: When was your current pest risk assessment last reviewed, and have there been any changes to your site, processes or surrounding environment since then?
2. Is Your Pest Control Site Plan Accurate?
A pest control site plan needs to accurately identify the location of monitoring devices around your premises.
That sounds straightforward, but it only works if what’s recorded on the plan corresponds with what’s actually on site.
Have monitoring points been moved without the plan being updated?
Have new devices been installed?
Are devices clearly and correctly labelled?
Do the identification numbers on your monitoring equipment correspond with those shown on your site plan?
These may appear to be relatively small details, but inconsistencies between your documentation and what’s physically present on site can quickly become apparent during an audit.
Your site plan should be a current representation of your pest monitoring programme, not a historical snapshot of how it looked when the contract began.
Quick check: Pick a monitoring point at random. Is it correctly labelled, in the location shown on your current site plan and identified with the same reference number?
3. Can You Access Your Latest Pest Control Reports Immediately?
What happens after your pest control technician completes a scheduled visit?
How quickly can you access the report?
And, perhaps more importantly, if an auditor asked for it today, would you know exactly where to find it?
Your pest control records shouldn’t depend on somebody remembering where a document has been filed or contacting your provider to request another copy.
Reports should be available when you need them and form part of an organised record of the pest management activity taking place across your site.
If accessing your latest pest control documentation involves emails, phone calls or searching through folders, consider whether that process is really serving your business as well as it could.
Quick check: Without contacting your pest control provider, can you access the report from their most recent visit right now?
4. Are Recommendations and Corrective Actions Being Closed Out?
Good pest management isn’t simply about identifying pest activity.
Your pest control technician may identify potential ingress points, structural defects, housekeeping issues, waste management concerns or other conditions that could increase the likelihood of pest activity.
The important question is: what happens next?
Recommendations need to be recorded, communicated and acted upon.
If an issue has been identified, you should be able to demonstrate what action was taken and, where appropriate, that the problem has been resolved.
At iX5 Pest Control, we place a strong emphasis on prevention because successful pest management means looking beyond monitoring equipment and considering the conditions that could allow pests to enter or become established in the first place.
Identifying a problem is only part of the process. There also needs to be a clear record of what happens afterwards.
Quick check: Review the recommendations from your last three pest control visits. Can you quickly establish what action was taken against each one and whether it has been closed out?
5. Is Pest Activity Being Analysed Over Time?
Individual pest control visits only show part of the picture.
Looking at activity over a longer period can help identify patterns and changes that may require further investigation.
Is activity repeatedly being recorded in one particular area?
Has the level or type of activity changed?
Are there seasonal patterns?
Could changes elsewhere on the site explain what you’re seeing?
Trend analysis helps turn individual monitoring records into useful information, allowing pest management decisions to be based on what’s happening over time rather than treating every visit in isolation.
Your pest management records should make that information available and help demonstrate how identified risks are being managed.
Quick check: Can you readily see the trends in pest activity across your site over recent months and identify whether any recurring patterns have required action?
6. Are Your Supporting Compliance Documents Up to Date?
Service reports and site plans aren’t the only documents you may need to access.
Your pest management records may also include risk assessments, insurance documentation, technician training information and other supporting compliance documentation relevant to your pest management programme.
Again, the issue isn’t simply whether these documents exist.
Are they current, and can you access them when you need them?
Paper records aren’t inherently a problem when they’re properly controlled and consistently maintained.
The vulnerability comes from the number of manual steps that may be required to keep multiple documents current. If a document changes, somebody needs to ensure the outdated version is removed and the current version reaches the correct place.
Where this process is repeated across different documents, and potentially different sites, there are more opportunities for something to be missed.
Quick check: Choose one supporting pest management document at random. Can you quickly confirm that you’re looking at the current version?
7. What Happens Between Pest Control Visits?
Your pest control technician may visit your premises at scheduled intervals, but your employees are there every day.
That makes your team an important part of an effective pest management programme.
Would they recognise some of the early signs of pest activity?
Would they notice evidence of a potential ingress point, damage to monitoring equipment or a change in conditions that could make an area more attractive to pests?
And, importantly, would they know what to do with that information?
Pest awareness training can help employees understand the role they play in preventing and identifying pest activity, including recognising common pests, signs of activity, potential routes of entry and the conditions that allow pest problems to develop.
The sooner something unusual is identified and reported, the sooner it can be investigated.
At iX5 Pest Control, we believe this partnership between our team and yours is an important part of maintaining an effective pest management programme.
Quick check: Ask a member of your team what they would do if they spotted possible evidence of pest activity today. Do they know what to look for, who to tell and how quickly it should be reported?
The Problem With Preparing for an Audit
If an approaching audit triggers a flurry of activity around your pest control provision, that’s worth examining.
Are reports suddenly being chased?
Does somebody need to check whether the site plan is current?
Are monitoring devices being checked against documentation?
Are supporting records being gathered from different places?
Are old recommendations being revisited to establish whether they were ever completed?
The audit hasn’t created those issues. It has simply brought them to the surface.
Audit readiness should be the result of good pest management, not a last-minute project.
An effective pest management programme should be maintained throughout the year so an upcoming audit doesn’t require everyone to scramble to get the pest control side of the business in order.
And this is where the way your pest control provider manages information can make a significant difference.
Your Pest Control Documentation Shouldn’t Be Another Audit Headache
At iX5 Pest Control, we’ve deliberately designed our reporting systems to remove many of the administrative headaches associated with maintaining pest management documentation across BRCGS audited sites.
Following a site visit, your service report is automatically emailed to you and uploaded directly to your secure online portal.
There’s no waiting for somebody to return to the office and send it.
There’s no relying on a technician to remember to put another piece of paper into a site folder.
And there’s no wondering where the latest report has gone.
Your pest management information is available through the portal 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Depending on your pest management programme, this can include:
- Service and inspection reports
- Site plans
- Pest activity history
- Trend analysis
- Recommendations
- Compliance documentation
- Pest and site risk assessments
- Historical inspection records
It gives you one accessible place for the information you may need to demonstrate how your pest management programme is being maintained.
When Something Changes, Your Records Can Change With It
The benefit of digital reporting isn’t simply replacing a paper document with an electronic one.
It’s about removing unnecessary manual dependencies.
With a traditional paper-based system, an updated document may need to be prepared, printed, taken to the customer’s premises, put into the correct site folder and the outdated version removed.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that process when it is properly controlled and consistently completed.
But every manual step introduces another dependency.
Repeat that process across different documents and different customer sites and it becomes easy to see how an old site plan, superseded risk assessment or other outdated document can remain in circulation.
Our systems are designed to remove as many of those manual dependencies as possible.
Contract documentation can be updated centrally, helping ensure current information is available through the customer portal without relying on individual technicians to replace paperwork at every customer site.
It isn’t technology for technology’s sake.
It’s about making your pest management documentation easier to maintain, easier to access and easier to present when somebody asks for it.
When the Auditor Asks, You Shouldn’t Need to Ask Us
This is perhaps the simplest way to explain the benefit.
If an auditor asks to see your latest pest control report, you shouldn’t need to email your pest control provider and wait for somebody to send it.
If they want to see your site plan, you shouldn’t be wondering whether the version you’re looking at is the latest one.
If they want to review pest activity, recommendations or supporting documentation, you shouldn’t need to start hunting for records.
With the iX5 Pest Control online portal, your pest management documentation is available to you whenever you need it.
Log in. Find it. Show them.
That’s what we believe an audit-ready pest management system should allow you to do.
How Confident Are You in Your Current Pest Control Provision?
Thinking back over those seven questions, how many could you answer with a confident Yes?
Is your risk assessment current?
Does your site plan accurately reflect your monitoring points?
Can you access your latest reports immediately?
Are recommendations and corrective actions being followed through?
Can you review pest activity and trends?
Is your supporting documentation current and readily available?
Does your team understand the role it plays in pest prevention?
If you can answer yes to all seven, your current arrangements appear to be doing exactly what you need them to do.
But if No or I’m not sure came up more often than you’d like, it may be worth looking more closely at the service you’re receiving.
Not knowing whether records are current, whether monitoring points correspond with the site plan or where to find documentation when it’s requested creates work for your team that an effective pest management service should be helping to remove.
Changing Pest Control Provider Doesn’t Have to Create Another Headache
One reason businesses can be reluctant to change pest control provider is the concern that moving will disrupt an established monitoring programme or create gaps in documentation.
That doesn’t need to be the case.
iX5 Pest Control can support businesses transitioning from an existing provider, establishing the requirements of the site, reviewing pest risks and putting the appropriate monitoring, inspection and reporting programme in place.
Our objective isn’t simply to take over a pest control contract.
It’s to provide a proactive pest management programme that supports your wider food safety responsibilities and makes maintaining audit readiness easier throughout the year.
BRCGS Pest Control Services from iX5 Pest Control
iX5 Pest Control provides specialist BRCGS audit-standard pest management for food manufacturing, processing, storage and packaging businesses.
Our approach combines proactive pest prevention and monitoring with comprehensive digital reporting, experienced technical support and an understanding of the wider regulatory environment in which food businesses operate.
For businesses taking out a new 12-month BRCGS audit-standard pest management contract, we also provide a complimentary 90-minute staff training session for up to 20 members of your team, delivered by Chartered Environmental Health Practitioner Matt O’Donnell.
The training covers key food business pests, how pests enter food businesses, signs of pest activity, basic pest prevention and an introduction to our online portal.
Because keeping your site audit-ready isn’t something that should only involve your pest control provider when an audit is approaching.
It should be built into the way pest management works every day.
Not completely confident your current pest control provision is audit-ready?
Explore our BRCGS Pest Control Services to see how we support food businesses with proactive pest management, digital reporting and year-round audit readiness.
Alternatively, arrange a Free Commercial Pest Control Survey and we’ll assess your current pest management arrangements, identify potential vulnerabilities and discuss the level of support your site requires.