How do you treat a food moth infestation on your nuts or dried fruit ?

No food industry that uses or produces food is immune to food moths! The food moth eats everything and can pierce a closed plastic bag to attack the food. Find out how to treat a food moth infestation in this article.

What is a food moth ?

The food moth looks like a moth that is greyish in color. This one looks like the clothes moth but attacks on its side, flour, rice, pasta, cereals, chocolate… It has a preference for organic products, nuts, seeds, etc… !

It is not dangerous but reproduces very quickly, which makes it a real parasite! Indeed, a female can lay up to 200 eggs which hatch in just 3 to 4 days. After a month, the larvae become butterflies and the reproductive cycle continues indefinitely as long as there is food available. At an ambient temperature of 30 ° C, a generation can develop in as little as a month. Food moths don’t like the cold. Their reproduction rate is 4 to 7 times slower when the temperature drops to 10 ° C. It is therefore in summer that you should be most wary !

Caution: Cold treatment does not guarantee the complete elimination of eggs and larvae. These return to a vegetative state but come back to life when the temperature conditions become favorable again.

How to notice an infestation ?

All it takes is a cocoon or a larva stuck to a product for the invasion to begin.

The presence of food moths is therefore noticeable by the appearance of small white grubs in the packaging or on the outside, the larvae. It is also possible to see cocoons around the lids of jars or cans. These are translucent white and sticky in substance.

Mites are crepuscular and nocturnal insects. During the day, butterflies keep relatively quiet and discreet, their wings folded in on themselves. Their detection can therefore take time. Enough time for several breeding cycles to start.

How to treat a food moth infestation ?

To avoid contamination of your stocks of nuts or other food products, Steripure offers a debacterization of your nuts (almonds, pistachios, seeds, nuts, etc.) or your other low moisture ingredients. Its different technologies and processes (static or rotary) guarantee the treatment of food moth infestation, the cleanliness of your products, and the preservation of their organoleptic qualities.

Do you want to avoid food losses and have a food moth infestation treated on your stocks of dried fruits or nuts ? Contact us !