Abstract:
The street food is prepared on the streets and ready-to-eat, or prepared at home and
consumed on streets without further preparation. Street foods have a lot of socio
economic benefits including provision of variety of low cost, convenient and often
nutritious food, provision of employment and income, especially for women. The
Objective of this study was to find out current information on the status of food safety
parameters, which are knowledge, attitude, practice, and microbiological quality of
different street foods in Bahir Dar City. This study was conducted using descriptive
cross-sectional study using quantitative method of data collection. A total 160 food
vendors (32 Vendors from each food item widely sold in the street namely: fried fish,
Sambussa, potato chips, Ambasha and Bonbolino) operating in the major streets and open
air market were selected. An informed consent was obtained for the willingness of food
vendors to participate in the study and KAP data was collected through face-to-face
interviewing of street food vendors using structured questionnaire contained several
questions. From a total of 160 street food vendors participated in the study the majority
(93.8%) were women.
The proportion of vendors with average food safety knowledge levels was only 8.1% as
they obtained scores between 60 and 80. The majority of the street food vendors (91.9%)
had an insufficient food safety knowledge level as they obtained scores less than 59.9.
Moreover, none of the vendors had good food safety knowledge. The mean food safety
attitude score of the street food vendors was (56 ± 14). Microbial quality data analysis part shows that the Standard plate count varied from 2.25X105cfu/g - 3.8X105cfu/g. The
Maximum value was enumerated in Fried fish while the minimum value was in
Bonbolino. Based on the observation and finding this study confirmed that street foods
sold in Bahir Dar city have a safety problem and street food vendors is lack of adequate
information regarding food safety principles. Therefore Bahir Dar city administrator
should facilitate the access to food safety training, health education to the vendors on
personal hygiene, food safety and finally on the proper disposal of wastes.