AIB Pest Control
AIB does not issue a pass. It issues a number, and your customer decides what number is acceptable. Integrated Pest Management is one of the five categories that number is built from, and it is the one most often found wanting on a UK site.
At a Glance
AIB International’s Consolidated Standards for Inspection make Integrated Pest Management one of five scored categories. The site must hold a written IPM programme setting out its goal, scope and procedures, grounded in the behaviour and biology of the pests it targets.
An annual assessment must cover all areas inside and outside the facility. The work must be done by trained in-house staff or a registered, trained or licensed contractor, with documented competence. Devices must be placed from a detailed survey, recorded on a current site map and inspected at defined frequencies, and pest sighting logs must be reviewed quarterly for trends with documented corrective action.
What the Standard Asks For
AIB is more prescriptive than the UK schemes about how the programme runs day to day, and less prescriptive about the paperwork format. Both catch sites out.
Not a contract and a service sheet. A document stating the goal, the scope and the procedures for execution, based on the behaviour and biology of the pests the site actually faces.
Covering all areas inside and outside the building, evaluating the programme’s effectiveness and the conditions that encourage activity. Quarterly in-depth review is treated as best practice.
Trained in-house personnel or a registered, trained or licensed contractor, with certification and GMP training on file rather than asserted.
Placement driven by a detailed facility survey, not a standard spacing, with a current site map showing every monitoring device. Published spacings are starting points, not requirements.
Exterior rodent devices along foundation walls inspected at least monthly, interior devices in sensitive areas weekly, and insect light traps kept more than 3 metres from food contact surfaces.
A pest sighting log with a designated location, reviewed quarterly to identify patterns of activity, with corrective action documented against what the pattern shows.
How the Score Works
AIB scores five categories: Operational Methods and Personnel Practices, Maintenance for Food Safety, Cleaning Practices, Integrated Pest Management, and Adequacy of Prerequisite and Food Safety Programs. Each is scored out of 200 and the five add to a possible 1,000. These are the descriptors a category score carries.
No identified risk in the category.
Observations with no potential to contaminate product.
A potential hazard, or a programme with gaps in part of it.
A significant food safety risk, or a programme at risk of failing.
An imminent hazard, programme failure, or GMP violation.
The fifth category is calculated so it can never be the highest of the five. Weak documentation therefore caps the whole result, however clean the site looks on the day.
How We Build It
A field biologist writes the IPM programme document itself, with the goal, scope and procedures set against the pests your site and your process actually attract, so the first thing an inspector asks for exists.
Device positions come out of a full facility survey rather than a standard spacing, and the map is held in Insectram so it is current on the day rather than current at installation.
AIB expects interior devices in sensitive areas checked weekly, which is more often than a typical UK contract visits. Shield sets a combined programme: technician service visits plus a documented in-house check procedure your staff can run and evidence between them.
Sighting logs and catch data are reviewed quarterly, not annually, with the pattern written up and corrective actions assigned, which is the level AIB treats as best practice.
Where Sites Lose Points
AIB inspectors look at the programme and the building together. Most lost points come from the gap between the two.
A contract, service reports and a bait plan, but no document stating the goal, scope and procedures. The category can be scored down before the walk starts.
Devices moved, added or removed with the site map unchanged, so the inspector counts a discrepancy on the floor.
Eight or twelve contractor visits a year with nothing recorded in between, against an expectation of weekly checks in sensitive areas.
Units within 3 metres of an open food contact surface, which is a placement issue and a contamination risk in one observation.
Sighting logs filed all year and looked at once, where quarterly review is the expected practice.
Application records missing the product name, the location, the date, the time or the applicator’s signature, or safety data sheets not held for every product on site.
Our Method
A field biologist surveys the whole site inside and out and writes the IPM programme document, not just a risk assessment. Devices are positioned from that survey, numbered and mapped in Insectram. The service schedule is set alongside a documented in-house check procedure so the frequencies AIB expects are met and evidenced. Chemical records, safety data sheets and labels are loaded into the portal from the first application. At ninety days the first quarterly trend review is produced, so the review cycle is already running before an inspection is booked.
AI Pest Management
Insectram holds the written IPM programme, the current device map, every inspection at point level, the pest sighting log, application records with product, location, date and time, safety data sheets and labels, and the quarterly trend reviews. An AIB inspector working through the IPM category can be given direct access and read the evidence at source. Because the map and the records live in the same place, the discrepancy between the drawing and the floor that costs sites points does not build up between visits. AI analytics surface recurring risks and seasonal patterns, while every technical decision stays with your BPCA-qualified technician.
The Documentation
AIB’s documentation expectations are specific. A signed contract with the external provider setting out the services and the emergency arrangements. Evidence of the provider’s registration, licensing and training, plus GMP training. The written IPM programme. A current site map of every monitoring device. Inspection records at device level. Safety data sheets and labels for every pesticide held or used.
Application records naming the product, the location, the date, the time and the applicator, signed. Pesticides stored in a limited-access, locked and ventilated area. A pest sighting log with a designated location, and the quarterly reviews of it with corrective actions closed out. Shield supplies all of it as part of the contract rather than as a pre-inspection exercise.
Field Biologist Support
AIB asks for a programme grounded in current knowledge of pest behaviour and biology. A field biologist writes it for your site and revises it when the process, the fabric or the pressure changes, which is also the annual assessment the standard expects.
A documented walk of the IPM category ahead of the inspection, scored the way an inspector would score it, so the points you would have lost are identified while there is still time to recover them.
A field biologist can attend on inspection day and answer technical questions directly. Where an observation is raised you get a corrective action plan with owners, dates and evidence requirements, closed out through the portal.
The Other Standards
UK sites inspected by AIB are almost always certified to a GFSI scheme as well, usually because a North American customer asks for AIB on top of what the UK retailers already require. The programme is built to satisfy the strictest requirement in the set.
The food industry benchmark: documented IPM, trend analysis of catch data and a named contractor with proven competence.
Proportionate, achievable pest control for smaller UK food and drink producers, without the overhead of a BRCGS-scale system.
Farm and packing assurance, where pest control works alongside grain storage and livestock operations.
Pest control as a prerequisite programme inside your wider food safety management system.
GFSI-recognised certification, accepted across global supply chains and demanding the same evidence discipline.
The documentation an environmental health officer asks for, and how pest control sits inside your HACCP plan.
Client Feedback
“Shield’s audit compliance support for our BRCGS certification has been invaluable. Their knowledge of the standards has made our audits much more streamlined.”
Food Manufacturing
“We’ve been using Shield’s Insectram reporting system and it has changed how we manage pest control. Real-time updates and trend analysis keep us proactive.”
Multi-site Facilities
“Shield’s commercial pest control service is impressive. Their technicians are professional and thorough, ensuring our warehouse remains pest-free.”
Warehousing
Areas We Cover
Based in Selby, Shield services food manufacturing, packing, storage and distribution sites inspected against the AIB Consolidated Standards across Yorkshire, the Humber and the North of England. Independent since 2002, BPCA registered, £10m public liability, 24-hour emergency response.
A Shield field biologist will walk the IPM category the way an inspector would, tell you where the points would go, and set out what it takes to recover them before your inspection date. No obligation.
A: AIB does not pass or fail you. Each of the five categories is scored out of 200 and the five add to a possible 1,000, and your customer sets the threshold they will accept. That is why a result can be technically respectable and still cost a contract. It also means Integrated Pest Management is worth up to 200 points in its own right, and that the Adequacy of Programs category is calculated so it can never be the highest of the five, so weak documentation caps everything.
A: More often than a typical UK contract visits. Exterior rodent devices along foundation walls are expected to be inspected at least monthly, and interior devices in sensitive areas weekly. Most UK sites meet that with a combined programme: scheduled technician service visits, plus a documented in-house check procedure that site staff run and record between visits, audited by the contractor.
A: No. AIB allows trained in-house personnel or a registered, trained or licensed contractor, but either way the competence has to be documented, with certification and GMP training on file. Where a contractor is used, a signed contract setting out the services and the emergency arrangements is part of the expected documentation.
