At the end of last year, our technical team was invited to give a series of presentations to the Association of Chief Trading Standards Officers.

The presentations took place in York, Manchester, Birmingham and London, to audiences of local authority enforcement officers working on hygiene in feed businesses, such as farms, stores or feed mills.

BPCA sent along our crack team of technical experts to deliver the presentations:

• Dee Ward-Thompson, Technical Manager
• Kevin Higgins, Membership Manager
• Natalie Bungay, Technical and Compliance Officer.

They would cover how a business can practically identify their pest management risks and the measures that can be taken to control these.

They also touched on how this might affect businesses of different sizes, and what level of formalised plans and records are useful to any affected businesses.

The biggest risk to any business storing feed is - you guessed it - stored product insects. As a result, the presentations focused heavily on these expensive pests.

Our technical team gave us their reviews on how it went, with Nat kicking off the presentations. She said:

“I had the pleasure of visiting historic York for the one-day event that ACTSO was holding.

“The team at ACTSO were very welcoming and appreciative of the involvement of BPCA, as we had a lot of relevant and interesting insight into an area that the trading standards auditors experienced.”

She continued, “The auditors regularly came across stored product insects within the premises they were inspecting and so this is what I focused the presentation on.

“The presentation covered the insects themselves, what to expect from a professional pest controller (inspection, documents, experience, report writing, etc) and the various treatment options from non-toxic monitoring to invertebrate fumigation with Phosphine gas.

“It was a great day and which showed how crucial it is that wherever we might intersect with other bodies interested in protecting public health, we get that pest prevention message front and centre.”

Dee had a trip to sunny Manchester for her session and said that it was great to arrive to see so many people in the room.

“Talking to anyone that has an interest in pest management is always a pleasure and to have such an engaged audience made the day really enjoyable for me,” said Dee.

She added, “Helping other organisations to deliver CPD is an important role that BPCA performs and one that we enjoy doing, so if your organisation is involved in pest management in any capacity please contact us.”

Gwyneth Rogers, writing on behalf of ACTSO, commented:

“I want to express our thanks for the invaluable contribution that the British Pest Control Association have made to our season of animal feed training events for local authority officers in England.

“BPCA kindly supported us at each of the four training sessions and the presentation about pest control in feed-related premises has been widely appreciated.

“Each of the speakers was extremely personable and knowledgeable. They responded to the interests of the audience and happily tweaked the presentation based on experiences at each event.

“We would personally like to thank Dee Ward-Thompson, Natalie Bungay and Kevin Higgins. Their contribution has not only provided practical support for local authority officers and the feed businesses that we work with, but also created increased awareness of the aims and activities of the BPCA.”

WANT TO TEAM UP?

If you'd like to enquire about having our team give a presentation at your event, get in touch.

hello@bpca.org.uk