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Essential Practices for Food Safety
of Street Vended Foods

Street-vended foods can become contaminated or spoilt by biological agents, which cause food poisoning, thus becoming a health hazard. Consumers do not have the available knowledge or means for determining the hygienic quality of street-vended foods they purchase. They therefore rely on the street vendors for this. Safe and wholesome street-vended foods can be produced through improved hygienic practices. Some esential practices are a follows:

(a) The raw materials should be purchased from clean places. Efforts must be made to avoid the purchasing of raw materials that are placed directly on the ground since the products are likely to be contaminated. Meats should be purchased from approved slaughterhouses and packaged materials should be properly labelled. All raw materials should have good sensory properties. The smell, taste, colour and texture should be characteristic of fresh unspoiled food.

(b) The place of preparation should be set aside for that purpose exclusively. It should be soundly and easy to maintain. It should be sufficiently lit, kept clean at all times and should be about one hundred and fifty feet away from any source of contamination. The reason for this is that foods are likely to be contaminated during the process of preparation. All cooking ranges, washing equipment, working tables, shelves and cupboards on or in which foods is placed should be atleast 60 cm (or 2 ft) above the ground. The places where food is prepared should have functional drinking water supply, waste water disposal facilities and bins for rubbish and refuse. When food is prepared at points on the street, care must be taken to ensure that good quality water and waste disposal facilitie are available.

(c) Cook food sufficiently whether boiling or cooking directly over a fire, as heat destroys many germs. The minimum internal temperatures the foods should reach are (a) beef - 165 degrees Fahrenheit, Pork - 150 degrees Fahrenheit and Poultry - 165 degrees Fahrenheit. If food are not served immediately after preparation it should be kept in a cool, well ventilated place or better still refrigerated and never outdoors or expoed to the sun: germ multiply easily in foods that are not kept cool. Cold foods hould be kept at 45 degrees Fahrenheit and hot foods at 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Only the portion to be erved should be reheated and not more than once, becaue re-heating sufficiently more than once causes germs to multiply to the point where the foods become dangerous.

(d) Cleaning of the preparation area should remove food residues and dirt which may be a source of contamination. The necessary cleaning methods and materials will depend upon the nature of the food business. Cleaning agents should be handled in accordance to the manufacturer's instruction and stored in their original containers if possible or in clearly and correctly labelled secondary containers, to avoid the risks of contaminating foods. Surfaces that are in contact with foods shall be scrubbed with soap/detergent and chlorinated water after every operation. This prevents contamination of food if the product previously in contact with the surfaces was contaminated.

(e) The sales unit should be built of solid resistant materials, kept clean, in good condition and in a clean place when not in use. They should not be used for any other purpose. They should be stationed in authorized areas where they do not interfere with vehicular traffic and/or obstruct pedestrians. The surroundings of the sales unit should be kept clean and litter free. This would make the site more attractive to consumers and prevent further pollution of the environment and contamination of the food by the environment. No animals should be allowed in or near the sales unit as they could contaminate the food and cause diseases. The person handling food should not have any contact with money but if this is unavoidable, the hands should be properly washed. All food vendor should be properly washed. All food vendor should obtain a valid permit from the Ministry of Health before operating a food service establishment. Rubbish bins should be kept away from where food i handled and mut be alway covered with lids. This will prevent them from attracting pet. Solid waste should be placed in a container reserved for this purpose for later removal by the garbage collection service; and liquid waste will go in the nearest drain. This will prevent the drains from being blocked by solid waste thus becoming a hotbed for contamination and pest proliferation.