I worked for one food processing company whose standard building practices was to eliminate all areas where birds could perch or nest - literally there were no flat surfaces within the critical plant that bird could access, beams were either cladded with a minimum slope or bird deterrence was installed (those spikes or brush like things). And even that wasn't 100% effective.
I was thinking sound based deterrents might be available but it would seem like these possibly wouldn't be practical for your situation as they would likely deter your customers as well (since they would have to be audible to humans to be effective on birds).

HI Jo,
We have issues too, and I did a bit of work last year trying to figure out how to deal with birds at our food manufacturing site.
We came to the conclusion that it all depends on what food sources are around in your area vs what is available on your site as the problem comes and goes depending on the season and what our neighbouring industrial sites and farms are doing.
If there is easy access to food that is where the birds will be, so we are trying to make it more difficult for birds to access the food source as the first priority, with some success so far this season.
A lot of the information available seems to be generated by the people who make the various products, so I found it hard to get some solid information on what works and what doesn't and it is so site and bird specific.
Good luck, I will be interested to find out if you come up with a good solution!

Hi Jo, I feel your frustration. Birds are an absolute nuisance and we spend a lot of time waging war against them. Worksafe just released the bird scaring guidelines that were developed with the agriculture industry, hopefully they might help you or give you new ideas. I wish you luck. https://www.worksafe.govt.nz/topic-and-industry/horticulture/bird-scaring-methods-an-introduction-to-risk-management/

We were considering using an austringer / falconer to keep pigeons off our building.

Hi Jo,
As per Mathew's comments, the NZDF on a couple of occasions have used falconers to assist in getting rid of birds around certain buildings, which has proven to be quite successful. Can be pricey though...

Thank you everyone for your suggestions so far.

Being a supermarket its very hard to manage keeping birds outside when you have five exterior doors which are actively open at one time or another 24/7 due to forklift, stock or people movements.

I enjoyed reading the risk management info for horticultural industry but while we have no difficulty in scaring the birds currently we need to be able to get them back outside again (alive or deceased)
Its a pity cannons, lasers or drones cannot capture them.

We will keep searching.
:nerd: