The Essential Guide To Pantry Pests

Summary: Pantry pests are a common issue for homeowners and business owners across the country. This blog gives a brief closeup of 5 infamous pantry pests and a helpful list of prevention methods for readers to implement in their food storage. The pantry pests featured here are: Indian meal moths, flour beetles, rice weevils, sawtoothed grain beetles, and warehouse beetles. Each pest’s life cycle and favorite foods are included in its own section. Afterwards, 6 prevention methods are explained and recommended to every reader. The methods are basic tasks, such as using airtight containers and inspecting food items at the store. Pointe Pest Control is dedicated to protecting PNW homes from pantry pests and other invasive pests all year long.

If there’s one place we don’t want pests — besides on us — it would be in our food. Besides the fact that we don’t typically welcome unknown bugs in our dishes, pests introduce all kinds of risks. From dangerous pathogens to harmful diseases to aggravated allergies, pests are not a secret ingredient you want to find in your food.

In fact, there’s an entire sector of pests infamously referred to as “pantry pests” for their frequent invasions of our stored food. They’re not the most dangerous pests, but pantry pests are definitely one of the most annoying. Let’s discuss five extremely common pantry pests before we get into the best ways to keep your pantry and cabinets pest-free.

Indian Meal Moths

Typical Food Targets: dried fruit, nuts, grains, cereals, pasta, spices

This pest might hold the title for the most common pantry pest, which isn’t the best award to win (unless you’re a bug). Indian meal moths only eat our food when they’re in the larval stage, but the adult moths aren’t innocent either. These gray moths lay eggs in a food source to give their hatched larvae a good chance at survival. The larvae are white with tinges of other colors, and they stay in their cozy food sources until they move elsewhere to pupate.

Besides the obvious clues of seeing larvae and moths near your food, another sign that Indian meal moths are your pantry pest is the webbing. Grown larvae create webs that are left in their wake wherever they travel. These webs trap droppings and dead skin, and any food that the webs touch is also contaminated. The adult moths can spread to other rooms after pupating, so Indian meal moths aren’t always exclusively a pantry pest.

Flour Beetles

Typical Food Targets: flour, nuts, cereal, dried fruit

Flour beetles love flour — hence the name — but they invade other types of food as well. Adult flour beetles are about 3/16 of an inch long and reddish-brown in color. Their larvae are light-colored with tiny spines on their bodies. Flour beetles usually live for over a year, and they cause all kinds of issues during that time. For example, they lay up to 1,000 eggs in their lifetimes! These eggs are all laid in food items, so flour beetles will ruin a full pantry in no time.

While flour beetles are often seen in houses, they can still infest food items in other locations. But no matter where they invade, flour beetles are notorious for ruining food items. Flour (big surprise) is specifically impacted by these beetles. When they invade and lay eggs in flour, the flour will spoil and smell before long. Flour beetles also cause mold to grow in the infested food items that aren’t thrown out.

Rice Weevils

Typical Food Targets: whole grains, seeds, nuts, rice

Similar to flour beetles, rice weevils don’t solely invade containers of rice, but it is their namesake for a reason. These pests are less than 3/16 of an inch long, have a snout, and are brown-colored. They lay their sticky eggs on food sources, and the hatched larvae are white. Rice weevils just look like tiny bugs, but they infest foods at an impressive rate.

Rice weevils are interesting because they don’t just munch on pantry items, they literally invade the food. They chew through the flimsy packaging — usually cardboard and plastic — then set their sights on the food inside. Rice weevils eat straight through the whole seeds or grains, leaving an exit hole on each piece as they move on to their next meal.

Sawtoothed Grain Beetles

Typical Food Targets: nuts, sunflower seeds, cereal, cornstarch, dried fruit

These beetles got their memorable name for the strange, saw-like “teeth” on their thorax. The sawtoothed grain beetle is 1/10 of an inch long, reddish-brown, and flat. The larvae are cream-colored, so they’re more difficult to detect than their adult selves. Sawtoothed grain beetles live for up to 10 months, and they lay about 285 eggs during that time.

Sawtoothed grain beetles place their eggs on food, like other pantry pests, but they typically spread to other food items beyond their original home. They can even leave the pantry altogether, so you might see sawtoothed grain beetles crawling around the kitchen. These pests don’t spread harmful bacteria, but they’re still not a welcome presence in our food!

Warehouse Beetles

Typical Food Targets: seeds, grains, furs, pet food, dead insects

Now, on to the pantry pests with the most boring name (in our opinion). Warehouse beetles are 3/16 of an inch long and oval-shaped. They’re either black or covered in yellow-brown markings. The larvae are dark and hairy, so their presence is pretty obvious once you spot a fuzzy worm in your box of cereal.

Warehouse beetles only lay about 100 eggs, but the larvae cause problems beyond just contaminating food. They shed their hairs as they age, and these hairs scatter throughout the food they infested. People can experience allergic reactions to these hairs if they accidentally eat them. As with any other pantry pests, we highly recommend throwing out any food that you find warehouse beetles and their larvae living within.

A Pest-Free Pantry

So, after reading about these annoying pests that ruin our food, you might be wondering how you can keep them out of your kitchen in the first place. Preventing pantry pests isn’t an exact science — these pests are very determined — but taking these steps should greatly reduce the number of bugs crawling into your food items.

The most efficient ways to prevent pantry pests are:

• Use up what you have. This is something your mother might’ve told you as a child if you opened a new bag of chips before the original bag was empty. But this is also a great way to lower the risk of a pantry pest invasion. The longer that dried goods sit in a kitchen, the higher the possibility that they will attract bugs, so use what you have before buying more.

• Use airtight containers. Moving certain food items into airtight containers is the best way to prevent pantry pests. These bugs chew through paper, plastic, and cardboard, so glass and acrylic containers with good lids are much better against these pests.

• Keep the pet food area clean. Whether you keep your pet’s food in the kitchen or somewhere else, it’s important to store their food properly. Pantry pests, ants, and rodents all love pet food! Store the dry food in airtight containers, and clean any crumbs and spills in the area.

• Wash the reusable containers. As much as we don’t want to add another chore to your list, it’s important to wash those aforementioned airtight containers once in a while. If you dump new food into the same container without washing it, any food residue on the container can attract pests.

• Inspect food items at the store. Before you bring the food home in the first place, check each item for any damage at the store. Packages that are torn, ripped, or open are at the highest risk of attracting pests that will lay eggs in the same food source.

• Keep the pantry and cabinets clean. Finally, keeping the pantry and food cabinets tidy is a great way to prevent all kinds of pests. Check cans and boxes for any leaks, and throw out compromised food items. Wipe up any crumbs and spills found around the food.

Protect Your Kitchen (And Home) With Pointe!

The kitchen is one of the most commonly-invaded areas because it has everything a hungry group of pests needs. It’s important to prevent pests from ruining your food and contaminating your home, and there’s no one better suited for this task than the experienced technicians of Pointe Pest Control. Our team is dedicated to protecting Pacific Northwest homes and businesses from invasive pests. After inspecting the property for all signs of pest activity, our technicians create a customized treatment plan that’s customized to solve each pest problem at hand. We leave no stone unturned in our quest to keep pests out of your home for good. Contact us today for a free quote on our thorough pest control services!

Citations

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Nelson, A. (2023, September 29). Common pantry pests and how to deal with them. WebMD. Available at https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/ss/slideshow-common-pantry-pests (Accessed on August 7, 2024).

Pantry pests: Insects found in stored food. (2024). University of Minnesota Extension. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://extension.umn.edu/product-and-houseplant-pests/pantry-pests-insects-found-stored-food

Rice and granary weevils. (2023, March 1). University of Maryland Extension. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://extension.umd.edu/resource/rice-and-granary-weevils/

Sawtoothed grain beetle facts & information. (n.d.). Orkin. Retrieved August 7, 2024, from https://www.orkin.com/pests/beetles/sawtoothed-grain-beetles

Stadler, R. (2022, March 22). Pantry bugs guide: Different types & how to remove. EarthKind. Available at https://www.earthkind.com/blog/pantry-pests/ (Accessed on August 7, 2024).

What to do about insects in stored food. (2023, December 19). Solve Pest Problems: Oregon State University. Available at https://solvepestproblems.oregonstate.edu/insects-spiders/food-pantry-pests (Accessed on August 7, 2024).