One Pest Sighting Can Close Your Business. We Make Sure It Never Happens.
Pest control for Melbourne restaurants, cafes, and food businesses food safety compliant, zero downtime, fully documented. Same-day response available.
A single cockroach on the kitchen bench. A rat in the cool room. A pest sighting shared on Google Reviews. Any one of these can trigger a council inspection, a food safety notice, a social media post, and a booking collapse all in the same week.
Cimex Pest Management keeps your kitchen, your premises, and your reputation protected with treatments scheduled around your trading hours, products approved for food handling environments, and documentation that satisfies Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) and your local council.
Why Pest Control in a Food Business Is Completely Different
A residential pest problem is uncomfortable. A pest problem in a food business is a legal, financial, and reputational emergency and the conditions that make restaurants and cafes great for business also make them ideal for pests.
-
Food, warmth, moisture, and shelter, 24 hours a day. Commercial kitchens provide everything pests need to establish and thrive. Grease build-up behind equipment, moisture under dishwashers and under sinks, food debris in hard-to-reach zones, and constant deliveries through loading areas all create ongoing pest pressure that never fully stops.
-
The stakes are higher than anywhere else. A pest sighting in a home is a nuisance. A pest sighting in a food business triggers a mandatory food safety notification under the Food Act 1984 (Vic), potential council closure notice, loss of food handler certification for staff, and reputational damage that is extremely difficult to reverse in Melbourne's competitive hospitality market.
-
Standard residential treatments don't work in food environments. Many pest control products cannot be used in food preparation areas or near food contact surfaces. A residential pest sprayer treating your kitchen with the wrong products puts your food safety compliance at risk not just your pest problem. Every product we use in food environments is cleared for use in food handling areas under FSANZ standards.
-
Reactive treatment is too late. By the time pests are visible in a commercial kitchen, populations are already well established. A scheduled prevention program, not a reactive call when something is spotted is the only approach that keeps a food business consistently compliant.
Pest we Treat.
-
🪳 Cockroaches Both German and Australian cockroach species treated with the correct protocol, gel baiting for German cockroaches, residual spray for Australian. We never guess which species and we never apply the wrong treatment.
-
🕷 Spiders Full web and egg sac removal plus residual barrier spray across all internal and external zones. Redbacks, White-tails, Black House Spiders, Huntsmans, all species covered.
-
🐜 Ants Internal gel bait treatment to trailing ant species plus external perimeter spray. We locate the entry points and treat the trails, not just the ants you can see on the surface.
-
🐟 Silverfish Residual spray to all harbourage areas like wardrobes, bookcases, wall cavities, ceiling voids, and paper storage areas. Silverfish are nocturnal and live deep inside wall and ceiling voids, surface spray alone never reaches them.
-
🦟 Flies & Mosquitoes External barrier treatment to resting areas, eaves, garden beds, and standing water zones where possible. Internal treatment to resting surfaces.
-
🦗 Earwigs External perimeter treatment and internal spray to entry points and harbourage zones. Earwigs shelter in mulch, garden edges, and under outdoor debris before entering homes through ground-level gaps.
-
🦋 Moths & Pantry Pests Treatment of harbourage zones including wall cavities, ceiling lines, and entry points. Where pantry moth infestations are identified, we advise on source removal before applying treatment.
-
🦟 Fleas Internal residual spray to all floor surfaces, skirting lines, and under furniture with particular attention to pet resting areas. External spray to garden areas and soil where flea larvae develop.
-
🐝 Wasps Nest destruction and treatment of eaves, soffits, roof lines, pergolas, and garden structures where wasps are nesting or resting. We identify the species and apply the appropriate treatment as some wasp species require nest removal, others respond to direct chemical treatment.
-
🐀 Rodents Rats and mice in the roof void, walls, and subfloor. We bait with professional-grade rodenticides — the only products still effective after the March 2026 APVMA restrictions locate and seal every entry point, and monitor until the problem is fully resolved.
-
🪲 Termites Melbourne's most financially devastating pest. Thermal imaging inspection, chemical barriers, and baiting systems. The average termite repair bill is $10,000 to $70,000. An inspection costs a fraction of that. Your home insurance almost certainly doesn't cover it.
How We Treat a Food Business
Every commercial job starts with a site assessment, not a quote call. We walk your premises, identify all pest pressure zones, assess your food safety documentation, review your current pest management records, and design a treatment program around your specific kitchen layout, trading hours, and compliance requirements.
-
Scheduled Prevention Program The foundation of pest management in any food business. Regular treatment visits weekly, fortnightly, monthly, or quarterly depending on your risk level that keep pest pressure controlled before it reaches the threshold of a reportable incident. After every visit, a service report is issued documenting what was inspected, what was found, what was treated, and what was recommended. This is your food safety audit trail.
-
After-Hours Treatment All treatments scheduled outside your trading hours, early morning, late evening, or overnight. No disruption to service. No exposure of food or staff to products during application. We work around your roster, not ours.
-
Targeted Kitchen Treatment with Zero Shutdown For cockroach management in active kitchens, we use professional gel bait application applied with precision into harbourage points inside equipment, under benches, and in crevices around pipe penetrations. No broad spray. No food contact surface contamination. No closure required. Treatment can be completed during a service break or change-over period.
-
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Documentation For businesses with food safety certification requirements, we build a full Integrated Pest Management plan documenting your pest pressure zones, treatment protocols, monitoring schedule, and corrective action procedures. This is the document a council inspector or food safety auditor will ask to see. We make sure it's complete, current, and audit-ready.
Food Safety Compliance
What You're Actually Required to Have.
-
Food businesses in Victoria operate under the Food Act 1984 (Vic) and are required to comply with the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code (FSANZ). Under these requirements:
-
You must have a pest management program in place. The Food Standards Code requires that food businesses implement a food safety program that includes pest prevention and management. "Pest prevention" means an active, documented program — not a reactive spray when something is spotted.
-
Pest activity must be documented and reported. Any evidence of pest activity in a food business — droppings, live sightings, damage to packaging — must be recorded in your food safety logs and managed with a corrective action. Our service reports provide this documentation automatically after every visit.
-
Products used must be food-safe. Pest control products applied in food handling areas must be cleared for use in food environments. Using a residential product in a commercial kitchen is a compliance breach, not just a safety risk. All products we use in food premises are approved for food handling environments under FSANZ guidelines.
-
Council inspectors will ask to see your records. EHOs (Environmental Health Officers) conducting food premises inspections will request your pest management records, service reports, chemical records, corrective action logs. We ensure your documentation is always complete, current, and ready for inspection.