National Pest Awards 2023 - Sole Trader of the Year
Nominations for the Syngenta sponsored National Pest Awards 2023
Mozzymak Pest Control Services
Lincolnshire-based Jo Cooke-Symak set up Mozzymak Pest Control in August 2019. She previously worked for a pest control company for a few years, getting her training and set her own business up thinking it was going to be small scale.
“It was going to be me, my dog and my van, and it literally took off,” Ms Cooke-Symak said. “I took on a couple of farms, and word got out.”
She said that 90% of her work is farm contracts.
“I have 78 monthly contracts, which is way more than I ever anticipated,” Ms Cooke-Symak said, “but they all fit in.”
Looking ahead, Ms Cooke- Symak said she’d like to offer bird work.
“You have no idea how pleased I am to be a finalist. To be recognised, I feel like I’ve already won,” she said.
Musca Pest Management Services
After working in traditional pest control, Chris Emmans started Musca Pest Management Services in April 2022.
The majority of his work is domestic, but he is building up a portfolio of commercial work, which includes one Red Tractor site, a cheese factory, which is currently going through Safe and Local Supplier Approval (SALSA) accreditation, a brewery and a couple of takeaways.
Mr Emmans passed the RSPH Level 3 qualification, which he said was quite a challenge. His next goal is the Certified Field Biologist qualification.
“I’ve always been interested in the field biologist role,” Mr Emmans said.
He said his strength as a pest controller is that he has gone out of his way to gain training at every opportunity.
Mr Emmans added: “It’s pretty incredible to be a finalist – I didn’t expect that at all.”
Westart Apiaries
Westart Apiaries provides specialist bee removal services to domestic and commercial clients up and down the country, including large pest control companies.
Clive Stewart started in pest control in 2010, working with a medium-sized company, where he was allowed to develop the bee removal area of the business. After about 10 years on, he moved out to work for myself and said it’s gone “fantastically well”.
Mr Stewart offers training for pest controllers in live bee removal and is running a training event in September in Staffordshire.
“I’m looking to get the course accredited with LANTRA,” he said.
Being a finalist in the National Pest Awards, he said is not so much recognition for what he’s done, but recognition for the bee removal specialists of the pest control industry.
