Food Processing
ZERO TOLERANCE MEETS A RESTRICTED TOOLKIT
Food processing is the hardest rodent environment there is. The stakes are absolute — a sighting, a dropping, or gnaw evidence can fail a third-party audit, hold a lot, or force a recall — while the toolkit is more restricted than anywhere else, because you cannot introduce rodenticide near exposed product, ingredients, or packaging.
DETOUR® is built for exactly this bind. The formula is made from food-grade components and works by contact deterrence, not poison, so it protects entry points, structure, and perimeter without a toxicant or a carcass anywhere in the plant. It’s listed under the NSF Nonfood Compounds Program (categories F2 and F3) for use in the nonfood areas of a food-processing facility.
DETOUR® is applied to structural surfaces, entry points, equipment exteriors, drains, and perimeter — never to food-contact surfaces, product zones, or areas of exposed product or ingredients. All use follows label directions and the product’s NSF nonfood-area listing.
Receiving, Docks & Raw Material Intake
Receiving is where the outside gets in. Dock doors cycle open through every shift, inbound pallets arrive from environments you don’t control, and the gap under a closed dock door is an open invitation after hours.
Rodents ride in on pallets or walk in through dock gaps, then move from the staging area deeper into the plant. It’s the first line of the facility and the one most exposed to outside pressure.
Treat the dock and intake structure: dock leveler seals and bumpers, roll-up door tracks and thresholds, and the wall penetrations around the receiving area.
Because the deterrent is made from food-grade components and carries an NSF nonfood-area listing, it’s suited to the receiving environment in a way a bait program at the dock is not. Keep applications on structure — dock hardware, thresholds, wall bases — not on staging surfaces where product sits.
Dry Storage & Ingredient Warehousing
Bulk ingredients, packaging, and palletized dry goods draw rodents to food and cover in one place. They nest deep in racking and stored material where routine inspection doesn’t reach.
The consequence is severe: a contaminated ingredient lot is destroyed, and gnaw or dropping evidence in storage fails an inbound QA check or a facility audit. In a food plant the loss isn’t the product eaten — it’s the lot condemned and the audit finding logged.
Treat the structure around stored material, never the material. Run gel along wall/floor junctions, the base of racking uprights, column bases, and the perimeter where storage meets the wall.
The food-grade-component formula and NSF nonfood-area listing make it appropriate around a dry-storage environment where baiting among ingredients is not. Applications stay on structure and racking, away from ingredient and packaging contact surfaces.
Production & Processing Floor
The production floor is the highest-stakes zone in the plant. Rodents are drawn to warmth from motors and equipment and to spillage along the line, harboring in equipment bases, motor and control housings, and wall penetrations around the process.
Any activity here is a direct threat to product safety and the single fastest way to a line hold or an audit failure. It’s also the zone where what you’re permitted to apply is most tightly limited.
Treat only the structure and equipment exteriors, held well away from the product zone: equipment leg and base pads, the exterior of motor and control housings, conduit penetrations, and wall/floor junctions off the line.
For control and motor wiring exteriors, Wire Protection Gel adds a barrier film over the cable. Nothing is applied to food-contact surfaces, product zones, or any area of exposed product — the deterrent works the structure the rodents travel, not the line the product runs on.
Sanitation, Drains & Wash-Down Areas
Floor drains and wet zones are prime rodent territory — a reliable water source, moisture, and concealed travel routes through the drain network. Drains connect areas of the plant below the floor, and rodents use them as highways between rooms.
Wash-down areas add organic residue and standing moisture that sustain activity, and the drain lines themselves are a route that bypasses everything you’ve done at the walls and doors.
Treat the drain surrounds and wet-zone structure: the floor and wall structure around drain covers, the base of walls in wash-down areas, and the penetrations where drain and utility lines pass through the structure.
Keep the deterrent on the surrounding structure, not in the drain flow path or on any surface subject to direct product contact. It closes the below-floor travel route without interfering with drainage or sanitation.
Exterior, Grounds & GMP Perimeter
Every audit scheme starts at the perimeter, because that’s where rodent pressure originates. Landscaping and ground cover against the building, the exterior wall base, utility penetrations, and waste and compactor areas all breed and feed the population before it reaches the envelope.
Waste areas are the single largest exterior draw — a compactor or dumpster corral pulls rodents in from the surrounding area and stages the pressure that ends up at your dock doors.
Hold the line at the perimeter, the way your GMP program intends. Treat the exterior wall base, utility and pipe penetrations through the exterior wall, and the structure of waste and compactor enclosures.
Along the landscaping-to-foundation transition, treat the wall penetrations and structural gaps. Stopping pressure outside is what keeps interior activity — and interior audit findings — low.
Audit Readiness, HACCP & Documentation
A food plant’s pest program lives or dies in documentation. SQF, BRC, AIB, and customer audits all require a defensible, well-recorded IPM program — and increasingly reward reduced-risk and non-chemical controls over broad rodenticide use.
A program that leans only on bait is harder to defend near production and leaves easy points on the table in the pest-management section of the audit.
DETOUR® is a non-lethal, reduced-risk control you can document in your IPM program — a food-grade-component deterrent with an NSF Nonfood Compounds listing, logged with dates, locations, and product records.
It strengthens the pest-management narrative auditors want to see, and pairs with RatTrax® monitoring for the deterrence-plus-monitoring combination that reads as a proactive, modern program. Supports your IPM documentation — it does not replace your pest management provider or program.
PROTECT THE PLANT, PASS THE AUDIT
Food Safety & Facility Inquiries
Volume & Pro Pricing
Technical & Compliance Docs
DETOUR® gel products are listed under the NSF Nonfood Compounds Program (categories F2 and F3, Registration No. 161390) for use in the nonfood areas of food-processing facilities. This listing applies to nonfood-area use and does not authorize application to food-contact surfaces or areas of exposed product or ingredients.
Always read and follow the complete product label before use. Application guidance on this page is general; label directions and your facility’s food-safety program govern all use, including zone restrictions and application in and around food and ingredient areas. For SDS, technical data sheets, and registration details, see the Technical page.