Why Treatment Follows Source Reduction

Successful small fly treatment starts with an inspection to find and eliminate breeding sites.

“Source reduction is the key to all small fly control. It’s not just applying products and materials,” said Adam Woodard, J&J Exterminating.

To control small fly populations, it is essential to identify the sources — the fermenting food, fouled drains, leaking sewer pipes or wet soil where small flies are breeding — and to eliminate these sources through improved sanitation.

Finding breeding sites is not always easy. “All you need is organic matter the size of thimble to breed in,” said Bob Gaul, Thomas Pest Services. As a result, “there could be hundreds of areas” contributing to the problem.

“The biggest mistake a technician will make is they’ll just focus on the floor drains, or they’ll find one area and think they solved the problem,” he cautioned.

Clients generally understand that small fly control is tied directly to their sanitation practices, reported 68 percent of PMPs in the 2023 PCT State of the Small Fly Control Market survey.

But busy kitchens, by their nature, are not pristine places. In fact, the survey found that 18.3 percent of commercial kitchens on average have problems with small flies at least once per quarter, even though they are getting pest control service.

PMPs said they try to get client buy-in for improving sanitation by providing written documentation of sanitation issues, along with photos, videos and, whenever possible, showing clients the problem areas in person.

“Some can’t believe what they’re seeing,” said Gaul of client reactions to observing sanitation issues firsthand. Still, this doesn’t guarantee their long-term support for cleaning it up.

As such, 51 percent of PMPs said their pest control company locations rely on physical sanitation and deep cleaning as part of their small fly treatment strategy.

In follow-up interviews, PMPs said this typically involves cleaning and treating drains, not full-scale cleaning operations.

Strategies for preventive small fly regimens and curative treatments vary by the fly species but most PMPs said their locations rely on drain foams/gels (84 percent) and bacterial/microbial cleaners (71 percent).

“Most of the treatments we make put a bandage on the problem while we focus on the sanitation piece. The drain cleaning and the drain foaming aspects of it are there to assist the client in that way. Not that we’re in the business of cleaning kitchens, but there’s some treatments we can make with those foaming products to help address those root causes,” said Ryan Gates, Versacor.

To reduce adult small fly populations, 65 percent of PMPs said they employed traps (light, glue and attractant) and 58 percent applied adulticides. Insect growth regulators were used by 59 percent to break the small fly life cycle.

The average callback rate for small fly control jobs was 3.5 percent.