Food Safety Practices among Street Food Vendors in Diplo, Sindh, Pakistan

Diplo town lack food industry, market places coined with food streets. Vendors role to ascertain public health by conserving safety of food chain. Food can be contaminated like improper processing operations, lack of personal hygiene, dirt, dust, smokes, etc. among vendors. Aim The present study designed to know the level of alertness of food vendors to food safety and hygiene practices by observing and record the corona virus disruption of their business. Materials and methods For that, a random selection of 20 vendors from Diplo was done. A detailed questionnaire was used in order to obtain the data. Results It was found that majority approximately 80 of the vendors were of the age group 20 30 years and were unmarried, out of these about 45 primary education showing a dishonorable arrogance to food preparation and selling. Almost 95 not covered food while rest 5 were lacking sufficient covering arrangements and apparels. Hence, 85 of food shops were unprotected to insects i.e. flies, mosquitoes, regardless of the type of cart. The 99 vendors used water from bore wells and hand pumps for food preparation. However, about 80 of these vendors showed strong agreement that the food may be fouled with microbes, insects, dust particles, food coloring, as well as different spices used while preparations. Also, various malpractices and unhygienic conditions during the food preparation may lead to food borne outbreaks. Persistence of different food borne ailments result in morbidity and sudden mortality. Conclusions It is concluded that mostly vendors are unaware about the basic hygiene methods and personal hygiene of their own. Parkash Meghwar | Dileep Kumar | Preeti Dhanker | Mukesh Kumar "Food Safety Practices among Street Food Vendors in Diplo, Sindh, Pakistan" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-6 , October 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33692.pdf Paper Url: https://www.ijtsrd.com/chemistry/food-science/33692/food-safety-practices-among-street-food-vendors-in-diplo-sindh-pakistan/parkash-meghwar