Photo Album: Indian Meal Moths Devouring Inventory in Middletown, NJ
Shipped a Ride
It seems somewhere between shipping from the warehouse to the store, Indian meal moths had made a home in the bags of bird seed. It seems that while opening some of the boxes, the staff unknowingly tore open some of the bags, allowing Indian meal moths to infest and breed throughout the store aisle.
What's an Indian Meal Moth
Indian meal moths, also called pantry moths, are about 5/8 inches in size and pale gray in color. Larvae of the Indian meal moth feed upon grains, grain products, dried fruits, nuts, cereals, and a variety of processed food products.
Quick Identification
Larvae of the meal moth spin a web as they become fully grown and leave behind silken threads wherever they crawl. Loosely clinging webbing on the grain is characteristic of this pest.
Discard and Disinfect
Meeting with management, we got rid of all the damaged product and then sanitized the shelves underneath the discarded products.
Now for the Application
We treated these surface areas with a residual application and a insect growth regulator that'll eliminate these nuisance pest. We also placed pheromone traps as a monitoring tool which will keep us up-to-date on what activity is going on.