ISO 22000 Pest Control
ISO 22000 contains almost no pest control detail of its own. It requires prerequisite programmes, and points to the ISO 22002 series for what those programmes must contain. Since July 2025 the pest requirements sit in ISO 22002-100, clause 7. That is the clause an auditor works through.
At a Glance
ISO 22000:2018 is a food safety management system standard. Clause 8.2 requires prerequisite programmes to be established, implemented, maintained and updated, but the detail of what a pest control programme must contain comes from the prerequisite standard for your sector. For food manufacturing that was ISO/TS 22002-1:2009. As of July 2025 it is ISO 22002-1:2025, which for pest control refers directly to ISO 22002-100:2025, clause 7. Clause 7 runs to six subclauses: General, Pest control programmes, Preventing access, Harbourage and infestations, Monitoring and detection, and Control and eradication.
What the Standard Asks For
Clause 7 is short and unusually direct. Every subclause is something an auditor can ask you to evidence in a couple of minutes.
An effective pest control programme established, implemented, maintained and documented, covering actions to control pests and to prevent their attraction, access, shelter and proliferation.
The programme must be appropriate to the organisation, have a designated and competent person to manage it, identify the target pests, and hold documented plans, methods, schedules and control procedures.
Effective measures to stop pests entering, with entry points such as holes, drains and external windows identified and managed, breeding sites minimised, and anything stored outside protected from pest damage and contamination.
Measures designed to minimise the food and water available to pests, harbourage such as burrows, vegetation and stored materials controlled or removed, and infested material handled so it cannot contaminate anything else.
Inspection of the site and surrounding areas at an appropriate frequency, detectors and traps placed in key locations, a maintained map of them, and devices that are robust, tamper-resistant and appropriate to the target pest.
Where pests are found, action to remove them, prevent recurrence and reduce occurrence to a level that does not compromise product safety, applied by a suitably qualified or trained person and verified for effectiveness.
The Evidence
ISO is less prescriptive than the retailer schemes about format and more prescriptive about substance. These are the six an auditor will want in front of them.
Clause 7.2.1 requires a designated and competent person to manage pest control activities. A role title is not enough; the competence has to be evidenced.
Four separate things. Most sites have the schedule and the reports, and are missing the written methods and control procedures.
The programme has to say which pests it is aimed at, which is also what makes the monitoring density and device choice defensible.
Evidence that any chemical used is regulator-approved, applied to the product instructions by competent personnel, and poses no contamination risk to product.
Required explicitly by 7.5.1, together with device siting that cannot itself contaminate materials, products or equipment.
Documented information on inspections must be retained and analysed to identify trends and the effectiveness of the programme. Retaining is not enough on its own.
How We Build It
A field biologist writes the programme that clause 7.1 and 7.2 ask for: target pests, plans, methods, schedules and control procedures, appropriate to your organisation rather than lifted from a template.
Shield technicians are BPCA qualified, RSPH trained, CRRU compliant and DBS checked, and the certification sits in your portal rather than in our office, so the competence clause is answered by a document.
Every detector numbered, mapped and chosen for the pest it is there to catch, sited so it cannot contaminate product or equipment, with the map maintained in Insectram rather than redrawn annually.
Inspection data is trended continuously and written up, which is the part of 7.5.2 most programmes leave undone, and the part that evidences effectiveness.
Where Sites Fall Short
ISO auditors test the management system as much as the site. Most findings are about the programme, not the pests.
A contract, service reports and a map, with nothing that states the target pests, the methods and the control procedures as a programme.
A named contractor but no certification on file, or a designated internal person with no record of what makes them competent.
Twelve months of inspection reports filed intact, with no trend analysis and no statement of whether the programme is effective.
Monitoring handed to a contractor and treated as discharged. Clause 7.5.2 puts the responsibility for reviewing the reports back on the organisation.
Detectors moved or added without the map changing, which is a direct 7.5.1 finding rather than an observation.
Action taken after an infestation, with no record that the eradication measures were verified for effectiveness immediately afterwards.
Our Method
A field biologist surveys the site and the surrounding areas and writes the prerequisite programme: target pests, plans, methods, schedules and control procedures. Detectors are selected for the target pest, sited where they cannot contaminate product, numbered and mapped in Insectram. Inspection frequency is set from the assessed risk and recorded. Competence records, chemical approvals and application records go into the portal from the first visit. At ninety days the first trend and effectiveness review is produced, which is the clause 7.5.2 output your auditor asks for.
AI Pest Management
Clause 7.5.2 is explicit: where monitoring and detection are outsourced, the organisation remains responsible for reviewing the monitoring reports and ensuring corrective action is taken. A folder of PDFs makes that hard to evidence. Insectram makes it a record. Your named competent person opens each report, sees outstanding recommendations and who owns them, and the review itself is logged. The detector map, the target pest list, competence certificates, chemical approvals, application records and the trend analysis sit in the same place, and your auditor can be given direct access to read them at source.
The 2025 Revision
For sixteen years the prerequisite requirements for food manufacturing sat in ISO/TS 22002-1:2009, a technical specification. In July 2025 ISO published ISO 22002-1:2025 as a full International Standard, and restructured the series: the sector part now points to a common part, ISO 22002-100:2025, which carries the requirements themselves.
Pest control is clause 7 in both, and in ISO 22002-1:2025 each of the six subclauses simply states that the requirements in ISO 22002-100 apply. The practical effect for a certified site is that the pest control clause has been reworded and extended, particularly on control and eradication, and that the document your programme should reference has changed. Certification scheme owners reference specific editions on their own timetable, so confirm with your certification body which edition your next audit runs against.
Field Biologist Support
Clause 7.2 asks for documented plans, methods, schedules and control procedures appropriate to the organisation. A field biologist writes them for your site and revises them when the process, the fabric or the pest pressure changes.
Both for the people doing the work and for the judgements behind the programme. Qualifications, CPD and registrations are held in the portal so the clause is answered without a request to us.
Clause 7.6 requires eradication measures to be verified for effectiveness and the results recorded. A field biologist carries out and documents that verification rather than leaving it as an assumption after treatment.
The Other Standards
ISO 22000 is a management system standard rather than a retailer scheme, so most UK sites hold it alongside something a customer has asked for. The programme is built to satisfy the strictest requirement in the set.
ISO 22000 plus the sector prerequisite standard and additional requirements, GFSI-recognised and accepted across global supply chains.
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.
A scored inspection rather than a pass, with Integrated Pest Management one of five categories worth up to 200 points.
Farm and packing assurance, where pest control works alongside grain storage and livestock operations.
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 ISO 22000 and FSSC 22000 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 pest control prerequisite programme against clause 7, tell you which of the six subclauses you could evidence today and which you could not, and set out what it takes to close the difference. No obligation.
A: Very little directly. ISO 22000:2018 is a management system standard: clause 8.2 requires prerequisite programmes to be established, implemented, maintained and updated, and leaves the content of those programmes to the prerequisite standard for your sector. For food manufacturing that detail is now in ISO 22002-100:2025, clause 7, which ISO 22002-1:2025 refers to directly. Clause 7 has six subclauses covering the programme itself, preventing access, harbourage and infestations, monitoring and detection, and control and eradication.
A: Yes, and most sites do. But clause 7.5.2 states that where monitoring and detection are outsourced, the organisation remains responsible for reviewing the monitoring reports and, where necessary, ensuring corrective action has been taken. Handing the work to a contractor does not hand over the obligation, and an auditor will ask how the review is evidenced. That is easier to answer when reports and actions sit in a portal your named competent person logs into than when they arrive as attachments.
A: ISO published ISO 22002-1:2025 in July 2025 as a full International Standard, replacing the 2009 technical specification, and restructured the series so the requirements themselves live in a common part, ISO 22002-100:2025. Pest control is clause 7 in both documents, and each subclause of ISO 22002-1 now states that the ISO 22002-100 requirements apply. The clause has been reworded and extended, most noticeably on control and eradication. Confirm with your certification body which edition your next audit will be conducted against.
