A Study On Sanitation Among Street Food Vendors Of District Bandipora

Abstract

Street foods have become an important part of changing dietary pattern. Large proportion of population prefers food offered by street food vendors. This signifies the volume of street food vending business as well as volume of public health at risk due to the unhygienic practices adopted by them. Vendors of street food constitute a major source of health risk, especially through Orofeacal transmission of pathogens, and vendor related risk is particularly high in poor resource community. The present study is undertaken to ascertain the hygienic practices adopted by street food vendors who are regularly offering their service from dawn to dusk in district bandipora of the Kashmir valley. Convenience sampling has been used to collect the data from 100 respondents. Pretested semi structured questionnaires were used to interview food handlers. Food vendors were randomly selected. Various parameters of sanitation were assessed including personal hygiene, handling of food; food contamination knowledge, utensils used, care of equipment and other practices were recorded through an observation. Our study revealed that most of the respondents enter into street vending from poor illiterate families and were working seven to ten hours daily. Analysis reveals that majority of street food vendors do not practice hygienic food preparation habits Data obtained from the street Food vendors showed that many wrong practices (intentional or unintentional) followed by them which can pose a serious health risk to the consumers. The study concluded that street food vendors in bandipora Kashmir did not had correct knowledge of handling the food necessitating the importance of organizing training workshops for them.