Is an impending health inspection making you and your restaurant staff a little nervous? That’s a normal feeling even if you work diligently to keep your kitchen, bathrooms, and dining areas as clean as possible. That’s because pests like ants and rats can ruin your reputation even if there were no signs of their presence leading up to a visit from the health inspector. Thankfully, there are a few steps you can follow to make your next inspection go smoothly.

1. Store Food Properly and Remove Hiding Spots

Pests are on the constant search for food, so keeping your produce, meat, grains, and other items away from their reach is crucial. Not only will pests attempt to get at the food already in your restaurant, but they will occasionally stow away on incoming shipments. That means you need to carefully examine both your regular food stores and boxes that come in from your vendors.

Use a first in, first out strategy to avoid rotting food attracting flying insects like flies. Pests are also interested in warm and dark places for shelter, so make sure you avoid creating these kinds of conditions with piled up boxes or supplies.

2. Examine the Exterior of Your Building

Keeping pests out of a restaurant in Puerto Rico can be difficult because of the lush surrounding environment. Pests living in trees and bushes near your location will look for shelter in or near your property if given the opportunity. By creating a firewall around your perimeter, you can prevent most pests from entering your property. This means avoid stacking boxes, pallets, or other containers near your exterior wall, and make sure to sweep up leaves and other organic debris away from the property. If you notice something like an ant hill, mosquito nest, or bee hive, you can hire a commercial pest control professional to come and deal with the problem.

3. Perform a Pre-Inspection

All of the paperwork that health inspectors use to evaluate restaurants is public information, so you can perform your own inspection by getting those documents from the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources or from a previous report. By following the same steps as a government inspector, you’ll know exactly which areas you need to carefully evaluate. In addition, you can hire a local commercial pest control company to examine your property thoroughly to ensure there are no problems before a government inspector arrives.

Keeping pests out of your restaurant should be an ongoing daily process. By constantly monitoring your food storage, examining incoming shipments, checking your exterior for problems, and thoroughly cleaning your spaces, you can deal with infestations before they get out of control.

Even if a health inspector decides your restaurant can stay open, a low score can ruin your reputation in the community, so being diligent is key. If you have more questions about how to make your next health inspection go smoothly, please give us a call at Oliver Exterminating for valuable information. We have commercial pest control experts ready to serve your business.