Systematic approach for the management and control of food safety for the street/informal food sector in Ghana

Abstract

The street food vending can be considered as one of the fastest growing informal business sectors in Ghana. However, there have been concerns with the safety of the foods sold on our street. In response to this, there have been various project studies and activities, over the last fifteen years all geared towards addressing the issues of safety of these street vended foods. One of such studies was a series of projects involving scientists, development partners, regulators and street-food vendors association from 1999 to 2005, funded by the Department for International Development of the UK government through its crop-post-harvest program. One of the main outputs of these projects was the development of nine modules for the systematic management and control of food safety for the street-food vending sector in Ghana. The nine modules developed by the project were on partnership, training of street food vendors and regulators, improving consumer awareness, improving street food vendor livelihoods, infrastructure requirements, food safety, food inspection, legal requirements and the supply chain management for the street vending sector. Microbiological survey (45 samples) showed that some street foods are intrinsically safer than others. Kenkey and waakye are safe products while most fufu were contaminated. This paper highlights the objectives of each module, the key issues to be considered and the priority actions for implementing the modules. It also considers critical factors that can lead to success as well as critical factors that might lead to failure