Bread, cereals, sugar, warm machines and water at the sinks: the kitchen and buffet bring together everything cockroaches and rodents look for. A delivery box left on the floor or crumbs under a serving unit are enough for a colony to settle in the pantry.
Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs requires food business operators to have adequate pest control procedures; in France, these sit in the food safety plan (plan de maîtrise sanitaire, or PMS). Rather than an inventory of the premises, this guide follows a typical day, from morning to evening, and shows what to look at at each moment.
Morning: receiving goods
Deliveries are an underestimated way in. Cockroaches readily travel in corrugated cardboard, and a service door left open during unloading is an invitation to rodents.
- Check the condition of packaging on receipt: holes, marks, droppings.
- Unpack quickly and get rid of boxes rather than storing them.
- Store food on shelves, off the floor, in closed containers.
- Close the service door between trips.
Service: buffet and dining room
During service, the risk mainly comes from what falls and what is left behind. Buffet units, coffee machines and cereal dispensers create warm, hard-to-reach areas where crumbs build up.
After each service, clean under and behind the units, empty the machine trays and leave no food uncovered. A cockroach seen in broad daylight often means a population is already established: don't wait for the next scheduled visit.
Afternoon: stores, dishwashing area and bins
Quiet hours are the right time for the areas nobody looks at much.
- Dry stores: stock rotation, no opened bag left open, floor clear for cleaning.
- Behind fridges and cold rooms: the heat of the motors attracts cockroaches; clean and inspect regularly.
- Sinks and floor drains: rinsed every evening, grilles in place, no standing water.
- Bin store: bins closed, emptied at the end of service, floor washed; this is often where rats approach.
The permanent set-up: stations, gel and proofing
Against rodents, baits always go in secured bait stations, closed, fixed and numbered, along walls and runways, away from food preparation areas. Against cockroaches, the technician applies gel in spots in the cracks and places monitoring traps to track activity.
Proofing completes the treatment: door sweeps on service entrances, grilles on vents, pipe passages filled, seals redone around stainless-steel units. Every crack closed takes a warm refuge away from the German cockroach.
Evening: the register and the logbook
The register is the plan's memory: floor plan with bait station positions, visit reports, product sheets, corrective actions. It is what you show during an inspection.
Add a logbook where each team member notes what they saw during the day: droppings, gnawed packaging, a cockroach, an unusual smell. This active vigilance lets the technician act on precise facts at the next visit.
Putting the plan in place in 5 steps
For a business starting out or wanting to rebuild its set-up from scratch.
- 1
Move 1
Inspect
Full visit of the stores, kitchen, dishwashing area, buffet and bin store, recording every sign.
- 2
Move 2
Draw the plan
Diagram of the premises with sensitive areas, entry points and numbered station positions.
- 3
Move 3
Treat
Secured bait stations against rodents, spot gel and monitoring traps against cockroaches.
- 4
Move 4
Sanitise
Gaps sealed, door sweeps, grilles, and cleaning routines tied to each part of the day.
- 5
Move 5
Follow up
Scheduled visits, station checks, register and logbook kept up to date.
The tick list
Kitchen and breakfast: rodent and cockroach planTick on screen or print the page: the list fits on a single sheet.
Your questions
I serve breakfast in my B&B: does this apply to me?
In principle, yes: food hygiene rules apply as soon as you serve food to your guests. The set-up is simply scaled to your activity, and the principles stay the same: monitor, seal, clean, record.
Are bait stations a risk for guests?
Closed, fixed and placed away from preparation areas, they are accessible to neither children nor animals. That is why loose baits are never used.
How often should visits be scheduled?
It depends on your activity, the layout of the premises and their history. We set it after the initial inspection, often as part of the prevention plan.
A guest reports a cockroach at the buffet: what should we do right away?
Discreetly remove the exposed food, clean the area, note the incident in the logbook and request a visit. If the guest raises it with you, acknowledge it and explain simply what you are putting in place.
A room to set aside today?
Take it off sale, book an inspection in a 2-hour slot and receive the photo report on the day of the visit.
