Common Pests in Commercial Kitchens and Restaurants

Commercial kitchens, restaurants, and other businesses in the foodservice industry have a job for protecting the health of the public by preventing transmission of pest-borne illnesses and contamination of food inside their premises.  

In addition to that, food safety legislation dictates that they prevent food contamination and exclude pests by taking effective measures.  

In addition to fighting with health sanitation, pests can also affect the restaurant business through litigation from regulatory authorities and public, loss of business and reputation, and replacement costs. Because of that, knowing the major pest threats to your business can help you in protecting your clients, staff, and business, and adopting a proactive approach to Pest control Edmonton.  

SPIs (Stored Product Insects) 

SPIs (Stored product insects) are known to be a problem for food businesses. They are known as the most expensive pests because of their feeding habits. The reason for this is that they can inflict major replacement costs on a business. 

These pests have higher possibilities to infest products that have been opened. However, they can also enter packaging made of cellophane and foil, plastic, cardboard, and paper. They crawl through seams and folds or chew through the packaging material.  

Just like any pests, SPIs are also regarded to contaminate food products via cocoons, feces, physical damage, and much more. This makes the food unacceptable or unfit for use in food preparation or for human consumption.  


Obviously, flies are a huge issue for food businesses. There are a lot of types of flies that are attracted to food odors produced by commercial kitchens. This includes house flies, drain flies, and fruit flies.  

Various types of flies are attracted to various food products. However, they all have the same danger to food safety and other legislation that the food business has to follow. 


The most popular type of crawling pest that infests commercial kitchens and other food handling businesses are cockroaches. Because of their size, the ability to hide in small areas, rapid reproduction, varied diet, and the illnesses they can carry, they cause certain issues.  

These pests are mainly nocturnal. They come out at night to look for shelter and food and hide in the daytime. They hide in dark areas such as furnishings, inside equipment, sewers, drains, crevices, cracks, and hidden areas that offer the right humidity and temperature. Also, these areas are hard to reach using normal sanitation methods and cleaning techniques.  


Rodents are one of the most popular pests found infesting commercial kitchens, cafes, restaurants, and other foodservice businesses. These rodents include mice and rats. They are the key player in the category of urban pests. 

Rodents are attracted to frequent and strong food supplies. They don’t travel far from their homes to feed. Thus, restaurants are the ideal areas for them to take shelter. Mice and rats are able to increase the population rapidly. This is particularly true if they’ve got a lot of food supply. At the time of maturity, they can produce a lot of babies.