Food safety implications of vended food in nigeria

Street food vending is a common feature of most cities and towns in developing countries, Aside provision of ready-made instant meals at relatively inexpensive prices, teeming urban dwellers are attached to street foods because of its gustatory attributes. Street food vending makes up the significant proportion of informal sector of the economy of most developing countries. Street foods contribute to a significant number of food poisonings due to paucity of data deficiencies in knowledge about important parameters in the food chain and host pathogen interactions. Foodborne bacterial pathogens commonly detected in street vended foods are Bacillus cereus, Clostridium perfringens, Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella spp. People who patronize street food, have been reported to suffer from food borne diseases like diarrhea, cholera, typhoid fever and food poisoning. Factors that consider safety implications of vended food are the vending location, food handling, waste disposal, quality of raw materials, utensils and equipment’s used. The numerous advantages offered by street vended foods to food nutrition and security, however, needs to be considered alongside several food safety issues as foods prepared and exposed for sale may become contaminated by pathogenic micro-organisms as well as hazardous chemicals. Chemical hazards have often been ignored in street vended foods, possibly because they rarely cause acute clinical illnesses which can explain the limited toxicological data currently available on the same. The benefit and contribution of street food trade to the economies of developing countries calls for ways to mitigate the hazards in its consumption and safeguard the health of the consuming population. To assure street food safety and quality, and protect consumers against unsafe foods, the management of the main risk factors associated with street foods should be strengthened and effective preventive measures at an appropriate stage need to be taken. Essentially, food safety issues are everyone’s responsibility, which means to ensure hazard free food, all necessary measures, must be taken along the entire food chain, from farm-to-fork. An important step towards reducing the risks of foodborne illnesses particularly those originating from pathogenic microorganisms from street foods would be controlling the steps in food preparation and sale that may contribute to the contamination, growth and survival of the microbes responsible for foodborne diseases.