BRCGS Pest Control
BRCGS does not ask whether you have a pest contractor. It asks to see the risk assessment, the plan, the readings, the interpretation and the closed-out actions. Shield produces all five as a by-product of the service, not as a scramble before the audit.
At a Glance
BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 requires a documented, preventive pest management programme covering the whole site, delivered by a contractor with demonstrable expertise or by trained in-house staff. The site must hold a current pest control risk assessment, an up-to-date plan of numbered monitoring devices, a dated report for every visit, trend analysis of catch data, corrective actions closed out with evidence, and an in-depth periodic review by a qualified specialist.
What the Standard Asks For
Clause 4.14 is short. What sits behind it is not. These are the six evidence requirements every BRCGS audit works through, and roughly the order they are asked for in.
A contractor with proven expertise and recognised trade body membership, or in-house staff trained to the same standard, with the certificates to show it.
Written zone by zone against your layout, process, pest history and building fabric, and reviewed when any of those change rather than annually out of habit.
Every rodent point, electric fly killer, pheromone trap and insect monitor numbered on a drawing that matches what is physically on the wall.
What was inspected, what was found, what was recommended and what was applied, with COSHH assessments and safety data sheets for every active used on site.
The pattern read and interpreted, not a column of numbers. BRC guidance suggests threshold limits that trigger a defined action, which works well for stored product insects.
Every recommendation tracked from raised to resolved, with an owner, a date and evidence of the fix rather than a note saying it was done.
The Audit Folder
BRC best practice guidance sets out what should sit in the pest control file and stay on site under the company’s control at all times. These are the six an auditor reaches for.
Scope, visit frequency, emergency response and reporting obligations, with contact details and the out-of-hours agreement.
Related directly to the bait and monitor checklist, reviewed for currency at least annually, and amended the day a point moves.
Site-specific, with the follow-up matrix showing how a raised risk is escalated and who owns it.
A report for every visit, plus a sightings form capturing location, numbers, time and the name of the person reporting.
Catch data trended over time with written interpretation, not raw readings handed over on the day of the audit.
COSHH assessments, safety data sheets, activity risk assessments, insurance certificates, waste transfer notes and training records.
How We Build It
A field biologist walks the site and writes the assessment zone by zone, setting monitoring density and visit frequency against your certification and your process, not a fixed national template.
Every device is tied to a location, a department and a zone, so any reading traces back to a point on the plan and the plan can always be reconciled against the wall.
BRC guidance is explicit that technician and field biologist visits should not run simultaneously and should be evenly spaced. Shield schedules them that way and confirms dates in advance.
Catch data is trended continuously by point, department, area and site, with thresholds agreed at contract start, so a rising count triggers an action rather than a conversation at the audit.
Where Sites Lose Points
Almost none of these are caused by pests. They are caused by a system that has drifted away from the site it describes.
Points moved, added or removed on site and never updated on the drawing.
Twelve months of catch data and no written analysis of what it shows.
The same proofing raised across four visits and never closed out.
Technician visits documented, the specialist review nowhere in the file.
Electric fly killers sited where expelled insect fragments can reach open product or preparation surfaces.
Expired insurance, superseded safety data sheets, lapsed training records.
Our Method
A field biologist walks production, storage, external areas and the building fabric, and writes the risk assessment zone by zone. Monitoring is installed, numbered and mapped, and the plan is signed and dated. Technician visits begin on a frequency set by risk, with recommendations raised in the portal and assigned to an owner. At ninety days the first full trend review is produced, giving you interpreted catch data and a closed-out action list before your next audit window rather than after it.
AI Pest Management
Insectram holds the site plan, the numbered monitoring points, every reading, every recommendation and every document in one place. QA leads open outstanding actions and proofing recommendations, pest activity trending over time, inspection reports with COSHH data and RAMS, and a complete historical evidence trail for any audit window. Auditors can be given direct access for the audit period, so they read the evidence at source instead of working through printed extracts. AI analytics surface recurring risks and seasonal patterns, while every technical decision stays with your BPCA-qualified technician.
The Current Issue
BRCGS Global Standard Food Safety Issue 9 was published on 1 August 2022 and remains the current issue. BRCGS opened a public consultation in January 2026 to inform the development of Issue 10, which closed in February 2026, and no publication date or audit start date has been announced. Nothing in your pest management programme needs to change yet.
Shield tracks the revision and will map existing clients across to the new requirements before the audit window opens, so the transition is a documentation exercise rather than a re-survey.
Field Biologist Support
A qualified field biologist reviews the whole system rather than the last month of readings: whether the monitoring is still suitable and sufficient, whether the risk assessment has been overtaken by a change in process, climate or legislation, and whether the file is complete. The report records conformity as well as non-conformity, which is what an auditor wants to see.
A documented inspection ahead of your audit, written in the language the standard uses, identifying the gaps while there is still time to close them before the auditor arrives on site.
A field biologist can attend on audit day and answer technical questions directly. Where a non-conformance is raised you get a corrective action plan with owners, dates and evidence requirements, closed out through the portal.
The Other Standards
Most of our food sites hold BRCGS plus at least one other certification or retailer specification. Each asks for the same evidence in a different shape, and the programme is built to satisfy the strictest requirement in the set.
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 has to work alongside storage, grain and livestock operations.
Rigorous, points-scored auditing with heavy emphasis on root cause analysis and trend interpretation.
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 BRCGS-certified food manufacturing, packing, storage and distribution sites 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 review your current pest control documentation against BRCGS Issue 9, identify the gaps an auditor would raise, and set out what it takes to close them before your next audit. No obligation.
A: No. BRCGS allows either a contracted service or a trained in-house resource, but the evidence requirement is identical either way: demonstrable competence, a documented programme, mapped monitoring, dated records, trend analysis and closed-out actions. Most sites contract it because producing that evidence continuously is a full-time discipline, and because an external specialist report carries more weight with an auditor.
A: Not a list of catch numbers. Trend analysis means reading the pattern in the data, what is rising, where, since when, and what was done about it, so recurring problems are traced to a cause rather than treated repeatedly. It is most often applied to flying insect catches from electric fly killers and pheromone traps, and works best with agreed threshold limits that trigger a defined action.
A: The standard does not set a fixed frequency. Visit frequency has to be justified by your risk assessment, so a high-care ready-meal site and a dry goods store on the same estate can legitimately sit on very different schedules. An auditor checks that the frequency matches the assessed risk, that visits happened on the dates recorded, and that any missed visit has a documented reason and a catch-up.
