What the Rules Say

Two More Pest Rules That Reach a Food Business: OSHA's Vermin Control Standard and 21 CFR 117.35

Written for: Restaurant owners as employers; commissary, co-packer and food-manufacturing operators; multi-unit operators with a central kitchen

The Food Code is the rule a health inspector carries. Two federal rules reach a food business from other directions: OSHA’s sanitation standard, because a restaurant is a workplace, and FDA’s manufacturing regulation, because a commissary or co-packer is a food plant. Neither is enforced by the county inspector, and neither changes what is on a county report. Both are quoted here because they say, in a federal regulator’s words, what a pest program is supposed to do.

OSHA: every enclosed workplace

(5) Vermin control. Every enclosed workplace shall be so constructed, equipped, and maintained, so far as reasonably practicable, as to prevent the entrance or harborage of rodents, insects, and other vermin. A continuing and effective extermination program shall be instituted where their presence is detected. — 29 CFR 1910.141(a)(5), eCFR as of Nov. 2, 2026

Two sentences, two duties. The first is exclusion and harborage, the same thing the Food Code’s outer-openings and harborage provisions require. The second is the one worth noticing: once pests are detected, the standard calls for a program that is continuing and effective, not a single treatment. The same section’s housekeeping and waste provisions bear on pests too:

(iii) To facilitate cleaning, every floor, working place, and passageway shall be kept free from protruding nails, splinters, loose boards, and unnecessary holes and openings. — 29 CFR 1910.141(a)(3)(iii), eCFR as of Nov. 2, 2026

(ii) All sweepings, solid or liquid wastes, refuse, and garbage shall be removed in such a manner as to avoid creating a menace to health and as often as necessary or appropriate to maintain the place of employment in a sanitary condition. — 29 CFR 1910.141(a)(4)(ii), eCFR as of Nov. 2, 2026

The standard applies to permanent places of employment. A restaurant with employees is one.

FDA: a food plant, a commissary, a co-packer

A restaurant is regulated under the Food Code. A facility that manufactures, processes, packs or holds food for sale elsewhere, which can include a commissary that supplies several locations or a kitchen that co-packs a sauce for retail, is regulated under FDA’s current good manufacturing practice rule, and its pest provision reads:

(c) Pest control. Pests must not be allowed in any area of a food plant. Guard, guide, or pest-detecting dogs may be allowed in some areas of a plant if the presence of the dogs is unlikely to result in contamination of food, food-contact surfaces, or food-packaging materials. Effective measures must be taken to exclude pests from the manufacturing, processing, packing, and holding areas and to protect against the contamination of food on the premises by pests. The use of pesticides to control pests in the plant is permitted only under precautions and restrictions that will protect against the contamination of food, food-contact surfaces, and food-packaging materials. — 21 CFR 117.35(c), eCFR as of Nov. 2, 2026

And the storage rule for pesticides in a plant:

(2) Toxic cleaning compounds, sanitizing agents, and pesticide chemicals must be identified, held, and stored in a manner that protects against contamination of food, food-contact surfaces, or food-packaging materials. — 21 CFR 117.35(b)(2), eCFR as of Nov. 2, 2026

Whether a particular commissary is a “food plant” under Part 117 depends on what it does and for whom; that is a question for the facility’s registration status and its counsel, not for this page. The University Pest Reference covers Part 117 for campus food manufacturing in more depth.

Why these are on a restaurant site

Professional synthesis, not law. When a manager asks what “enough” looks like, these two rules are the clearest federal answer: exclude, remove harborage, and when pests are found, run a program that continues until they are gone and that can be shown to be effective. That is the standard this site’s tools are written to, and it is the standard the records pages assume a court or an insurer would ask about.