Ants Opened Doors

Ants provided a big opportunity to pest management companies last year: The ability to get in front of customers to sell recurring general pest service.

In fact, technicians were able to turn new ant callers into recurring service customers most or all of the time, reported 58 percent of pest management professionals who participated in the 2022 PCT State of the Ant Control Market survey. The survey was sponsored by Syngenta and conducted by Readex Research, an independent market research firm.

“Ants are our biggest, number one pest,” said Wade Wilson, technical director at Turner Pest Control, an Anticimex company in Jacksonville, Florida. And responding to an ant call is “a great way to introduce our TurnerGuard package,” which protects homes from all ant species plus other pests, he said.

As well, ant control provides a solid boost to the bottom line. “It’s probably one of the top money-producing insects that we control,” said Travis Morton, owner of Morton’s Pest Control in New Market, Alabama.

According to the PCT survey, more than half (51 percent) of PMPs said ant control services became more significant to their location’s business in the past five years. Last year, the median revenue generated from ant control services specifically was $38,000.

At Remedy Pest Control in Charlotte, N.C., ant-related revenue accounted for about 10 percent of revenue overall in 2021 and has helped the three-year-old company thrive. “Ant control is definitely driving some of that growth,” said Eric Broadway, a company co-owner.