Interactions between Street Food and Food Safety Topics in the Scientific Literature-A Bibliometric Analysis with Science Mapping.

Claudio Bellia,Marzia Ingrassia,Simona Bacarella

doi:10.3390/foods11060789

Claudio Bellia, Marzia Ingrassia + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11060789

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Abstract

Street food (SF) consists of ready-to-eat food prepared and sold on the street. This food constitutes the food traditions of local populations in many countries of the world. SF characterizes a large number of cities around the world, from New York to Paris, from Palermo to cities of North Africa, China, India and Japan. SF is inexpensive and prepared following traditional methods that meet local consumer preferences, culinary culture and lifestyles. Moreover, SF allows a unique experience for tourists who also want to experience a destination through traditional food consumed on the street together with the locals. Nevertheless, SF is linked to several health hazards. Hence, several studies discussed on the compliance with hygiene and food quality requirements that SF vendors should guarantee, to ensure human health. So far, there is no bibliometric review attempting to provide an objective and comprehensive analysis of the existing scientific documents that simultaneously study the scientific topic of SF linked to that of Food Safety (FS). Therefore, the objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical framework of the interactions between studies on SF and FS topics, in order to discover if the combined topic of “Street Food Safety” (SFS) was investigated as a topic in its own right. A bibliometric analysis was carried out analyzing 276 scientific contributions from the last 21 years, indexed in the Elsevier Scopus database and in the Clarivate Web of Science database. The results showed a very strong interaction between the two topics and many others in several scientific sectors; In particular, the topic of SFS involves many disciplines of social sciences. The results highlight that the scientific topic of SFS exists but not consciously, and it is believed that the research interest in this topic can grow considerably in the coming years, also because of the current COVID-19 pandemic situation that we are experiencing.

Highlights

Street food (SF) belongs to the culture of many populations around the world
The aim was to know if the topic “Street Food Safety” was an existing cross-sectorial topic of interest for researchers, and what were the main scientific areas in which this issue was studied as relevant topic
This might be because the problem of food safety of street food is very relevant in those world areas

Summary

Introduction

Street food (SF) belongs to the culture of many populations around the world. It is a food usually eaten in many cities of continents such as Africa, India, Asia and Latin America [1]. Street food and street food vendors are popular in under-developed regions and countries, where they constitute a relevant part of their economy [2–4]. SF represents a fundamental part of the eating habits in many cities of the most developed countries. According to the FAO definition, street foods are ready-to-eat foods and beverages prepared and/or sold by vendors or hawkers especially in the streets and other similar places. SF includes a very wide quantity of products of animal and vegetable origin, grilled or fried, seasoned and served according to local traditions [7]

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