Inspect and ongoing monitoring for psocids on incoming food raw materials
HI, I am looking to learn from others how they inspect for psocids on incoming food raw materials and how you perform ongoing monitoring for this pest. Thank you
In my experience, we had an issue with one certain raw material. When the shipment would arrive, we would inspect each bag, using a flashlight and checking the corners and the seams. In the process repalletizing the material onto a new pallet we had in house. The material was then stored in a temperature controlled and monitored fridge. We set the temperature based on storage guidelines of the material and researching life cycles. Each time we would use the RM in a formulation we would inspect the bag again and take a sample of the material as it was dumped in an ingredient storage bin and sift through the sample.
Ultimately we started working with and holding accountable our supplier. We had a pest control provider do a full assessment of our facility and did not note any activity in our facility. This led us to work with the supplier on the issue and in the meantime in case working with them lead nowhere, R&D began looking into other suppliers. Hope this helps.