Sectors
A restaurant answers to a food verifier, a body corporate to its committee and the Unit Titles Act, a landlord to the Tenancy Tribunal. The pest programme for each site is built around the person who will read its records.
Why pest control obligations differ by sector
Pest control obligations differ by sector because each sector answers to a different rule and a different reader. Food businesses work under the Food Act 2014 and its regulations, apartment buildings under the Unit Titles Act 2010, rentals under tenancy law, and offices and non-food warehouses mostly under their own leases and insurers. The pages below set out what each one has to show, and to whom.
Sector obligations at a glance
| Sector | Who checks you | The rule that applies | Sector page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants, cafes, takeaways | Your food verifier | Food control plan, usually MPI's template plan; Food Regulations 2015 reg 18 | Restaurants and cafes |
| Food manufacturers | Your food verifier | Custom food control plan or national programme level 2 or 3; regs 18 and 51 | Food manufacturing |
| Hotels, bars, function venues | Your food verifier for food areas; guests for the rest | Food control plan for kitchens and bars; some small accommodation food sits outside the plans | Hospitality and accommodation |
| Body corporates, apartments | The committee and the owners | Unit Titles Act 2010 s 138: common property and shared building elements | Body corporates |
| Property managers, landlords | Tenants and, in a dispute, the Tenancy Tribunal | Residential tenancy rules; for commercial premises, the lease | Property managers |
| Warehouses, logistics | Your verifier if you store or move food as your main activity; customers and insurers otherwise | National programme level 1 for food distributors; regs 51 and 58 | Warehouses and logistics |
| Offices, schools, childcare | Management, the school board or the centre licence | Lease and hazard management; national programme level 2 for centre-based early childhood food | Offices, schools and childcare |
What stays the same across sectors
Whatever the sector, a programme has the same parts: a site audit, a numbered monitoring layout, scheduled visits and a written report after each one. What the sector changes is the visit frequency, the devices allowed in each area and the format of the report. The pest management programme page describes those common parts in detail.
The site audit is carried out by our partner's technician, so the written scope comes from the people who will service the site.
Sector pages
A commercial kitchen is checked for pests every day by its own staff and every so often by a verifier. A programme makes both of those checks easier to pass.
A manufacturing site carries more raw material, more doors and more product per square metre than any kitchen. Its pest records have to hold up to a verifier, and often to a customer audit as well.
A hotel is several businesses under one roof: a commercial kitchen, a bar, guest floors, a loading bay and often a car park. Each has its own pests and only some of them have a verifier.
Rats in a bin room are a common property problem. Cockroaches in one kitchen may be a unit problem. Committee disputes about pests often come down to which one it is.
For a property manager, a pest problem is usually a dispute about who caused it. The answer depends on timing, on the condition of the property and on what was written down.
A warehouse opens large doors to the outside dozens of times a day and stores goods in cartons and on timber pallets. That combination brings in rodents and birds whatever the stock is.
Offices, schools and early learning centres share a problem: a building full of people, small kitchens nobody owns, and long hours when nobody is there to notice. Where children are present, how the work is done matters as much as what is done.
Request a site audit. Our partner's technician walks the site and checks the records your verifier or committee will ask for. You receive a written scope with a monitoring layout and a quoted visit schedule.