Knowledge on Food Safety and Food-Handling Practices of Street Food Vendors in Ejisu-Juaben Municipality of Ghana

Raymond Addo-Tham,Emmanuel Appiah-Brempong,Adjei Gyimah Akwasi,Hasehni Vampere,Emmanuel Acquah-Gyan

doi:10.1155/2020/4579573

Raymond Addo-Tham, Emmanuel Appiah-Brempong + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1155/2020/4579573

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Abstract

Street foods have become a major source of cooked food for most households and individuals in many developing countries including Ghana. However, the rising concern about food-borne illness has questioned the knowledge of the street food vendors to constitute safety practices for food handling. This study assessed the knowledge of street food vendors on food safety and food-handling practices in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality of Ghana. The study used a cross-sectional mixed approach involving 340 participants selected by simple random sampling. A structured questionnaire and an observational checklist were used to collect data and analyzed using STATA version 12. The results indicated that 98.8% of the food vendors had good knowledge on food safety and handling. The knowledge on food safety was associated with training (pvalue ≤0.011), license status (pvalue ≤0.002), marital status (pvalue <0.001), and religion (pvalue ≤0.038). Good food-handling practices were associated with training (pvalue ≤0. 001) and license (pvalue ≤0.002) and not their educational levels. The study found training of food vendors as the most effective way to increase knowledge on food safety and enhance food-handling practices. The study recommended for collaborations of municipal assemblies with other agencies to strengthen, sustain, and organize regular training programs for new entrants and existing food vendors as well as retraining of trainers to equip them adequately with knowledge and skills to enable them effectively facilitate training programs for food vendors.

Highlights

Street foods have become a major source of food for most homes and individuals especially in developing countries [1]
Demographic Data of Participants. e study comprised 340 street food vendors participating in the study (100% response rate). e mean age of the participants was 35.47 ± 10.39 years. eir ages ranged from 15 to 62 years, and the majority of them (82.6%) were between 20 and 49 years, as shown in Table 1. ose below 20 years and above 49 years represented 6.8% and 10.6% of the total participants, respectively
With women of an average age of 35 years dominating street food vending in the Ejisu-Juaben municipality in Ghana, their food safety knowledge and food-handling practices were generally good even though they had low level of education. e training programs organized by the municipal assembly for food vendors are of significant relevance to enhancing food vendors’ knowledge on food safety and food-handling practices. ough encouraging, specific gaps in food-handling practices were discovered in this study and calls for urgent action and further studies

Summary

Introduction

Street foods have become a major source of food for most homes and individuals especially in developing countries [1]. It is consumed by about 2.5 billion people worldwide on daily basis [2]. E street food industry is growing at a very fast rate worldwide [5]. It has become a source of employment and income for individuals and homes. Over ninety-one million people including Africa acquire food-borne illnesses every year with resultant deaths of about one hundred and thirty seven thousand. It is estimated that the government spends about US $ 69,000,000.00 on food-borne illnesses [4, 9]

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