Street-vended foods are convenient and cheap meals, but their contamination can lead to
foodborne illness. This study aimed to evaluate food safety knowledge of street food vendors in
Ulundi and AbaQulusi local municipalities of Zululand District, South Africa and compliance of
their street food vending environment to sanitary requirements. A cross sectional survey design
was utilised to gather data from 400 street food vendors using interviews. A piloted checklist was
used to collect data on the sanitary characteristics from 200 randomly selected street food
vending facilities. Most of the street food vendors were black (99%), females (73%), and above
35 years (55%). Only the minority of street food vendors had attended a high school (47%) and
the vast majority (77%) of them had not attended any food safety training course. The majority
(64.7%) of respondents knew that food should not be handled when they have diarrhoea, even if
their hands were washed regularly, neither when they have flu, colds, cough, or catarrh. The
minority (43%) of street food vendors knew that the use of separate cutting boards for meat and
salad, and washing them between uses are the safest ways to avoid cross-contamination. The
majority (79.4%) of street food vendors were aware that microorganisms could cause foodborne
diseases that may lead to death. The vast majority (76%) of street food vendors had low food
safety knowledge and only 14% of the street food vending sites had high compliance with
sanitary conditions. In conclusion, most street food vendors possessed inadequate food safety
knowledge in key food safety parameters and most of the street food vending facilities were noncompliant.
Furthermore, most of them operate under poor sanitary conditions. Street food
vendors should be provided with compliant waste disposal and standard kitchen facilities with
water resources to ensure hygienic preparation and serving of food. / Life and Consumer Sciences / M. Cons. Sci.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/26627 |
| Date | 01 1900 |
| Creators | Nkosi, Nelly Virginia |
| Contributors | Tabit, Frederick Tawi |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | I online resource (xiv, 104 leaves) : illustrations, application/pdf |
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