Keep Flies Off Your Donut Display

Delicious, decadent donuts attract customers from all walks of life, but it’s the ones who fly into your donut shop you likely have the most problems with. As a donut shop manager or owner, you’re probably fighting a constant air battle, trying to keep flies off your fresh pastries. 

Nothing could be more embarrassing than when you start losing that battle and customers start to notice, then start opting for “just a coffee, thanks.”

All retail food businesses fend off flies, but donut shops have a unique pest problem. Unlike other restaurants and cafes, donut shop products sell themselves -- literally -- and you can’t cover the donuts without also covering your primary way of advertising them.

And flies are the worst. They’re one of the most notoriously difficult pests to treat, in part because no two infestations are necessarily alike. Depending on the species of fly you’re dealing with, one might be breeding in a clogged floor drain, while another has turned a potted plant or a pile of coffee grounds on the floor into its nursery.

Don’t Just Fly by the Seat of Your Pants

Because fly problems can be so pesky to cure -- and because, as a food service business, your pest control plan has to be especially on point -- you’re most likely going to need to call a professional pest control service if you start seeing them on the regular. That said, here are some common New England fly species you may encounter, and what might be attracting them to your donut shop in the first place: 

• House Flies: Common, hairy, medium-sized (1/8- to 1/4-inch) dark grey flies that prefer to lay eggs in rotting meat, food or garbage. 
• Fruit Flies: Tiny (3 to 4 mm) brown- or tan-colored flies with red eyes that are attracted to rotting food matter, but especially fruits and vegetables. They breed in dark, wet, unsanitary places like drains, garbage disposals, and trash bins. 
• Horse flies: Large (1/2- to 1-1/2-inches) gray or black flies with large, green or purple eyes. Females feed aggressively on blood, and can leave a bite even worse than that of a mosquito. 
• Bow flies: Fairly large metallic flies of gray, blue or black that are predominantly scavengers of dead animal material, the scent of which often draws them indoors.
• Cluster flies: Medium-sized, dark gray flies that neither feed or reproduce indoors, but rather migrate there when the outdoor weather turns colder to wait out the winter.
• Fungus gnats: Small, dark flies that infest potted plant soil, especially if it’s been overwatered. 

A Holistic and Non-Toxic ‘Solution’

Both because flies can infest so many different areas of your donut shop and because your business is handling food, an all-out chemical assault isn’t really an option for controlling flies. Instead, businesses in your situation typically rely on a strategy known as Integrated Pest Management, or IPM, which begins with environmental control methods, and only resorts to pesticide use as a last resort. 

Proper sanitation procedures, non-toxic interventions like fly strips, and facility maintenance designed to keep pests out in the first place are all part of IPM.

Flies in a donut shop are anything but sweet. Contact us today to schedule a free on-site consultation with one of our commercial service planners.