A study being conducted on Street Food Vendors (SFV) by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) within the Central Accra district has revealed that street food vending is mainly a sector run by women.
The study also revealed that it is high in poverty pocket areas of the city and near schools, and that, despite the widespread informality of SFVs, the overall hygienic and safety conditions under which street foods are prepared and sold in Accra are found to be acceptable.
In Ghana, street food preparation and selling provide a regular source of income for thousands of men and women, representing a significant part of urban food consumption for millions of low-and-middle-income consumers, in urban areas on a daily basis.
In 2013, the FAO and the Government of Ghana agreed upon a three-year Country Programming Framework (CPF), to enhance ongoing efforts at improving good practices among street food vendors with support for raising consumer awareness on food safety.
Within such framework, FAO is currently leading an extensive survey on street food vending within Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA), in collaboration with the School of Public Health of the University of Ghana, aimed at gathering updated and policy-relevant information about the location and type of street food outlets, the variety of foods sold, the hygienic and safety conditions under which they are prepared (based on the assessment of vendors’ practices, equipment quality, environmental conditions), the legal status of vendors, the economic dimension of the sector.
As part of FAO programming towards eliminating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, with the intention to provide safe, nutritious and healthy food to the population of Ghana, the process has a three-fold aim of backing efficient policies, acknowledging and inspiring other vendors, and developing and supporting a deserved positive image of the sector.
The survey is supported by the Project on Mainstreaming Nutrition in CAADP and Agriculture Policies and Programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa funded by Federal Government of Germany (BMEL) and the Italian Fondazione della Banca del Monte di Lombardia (FBML).
The provisional findings on a first sample of 1700 street food vendors (SFVs) operating in Accra as of April 2016 show that SFVs cluster in areas where poverty pockets are higher (e.g. Osu, Adabraka, South Industrial Area, Usher Town, Jamestown, Korle Dudor East, Asylum Down West), while they are very few in higher-income neighborhoods (e.g. North and West Ridge). Data show that almost half of them operate near a school, making them a central element in the children nutrition. This calls for a special attention from the authorities, not only in relation to food hygiene and safety, but also to the nutritional quality of foods on sale.
Almost all SFVs are women, whom often face challenges in adapting to the informal labor market, but nonetheless play a central role in the economy by resiliently combining their traditional role of food service providers and small scale entrepreneurship. One very positive finding is the good level of education of SFVs, where half of them attended at least Junior High School.
Typically, SFVs have been engaged in the sector for a little less than a decade (with more than a half who started selling street food less than five years ago), working on average 11 hours per day, 6 days per week. Almost all SF enterprises are owned by one person. One third of the SF enterprises have no employee, another one third have one employee, and few have two or more employees.
The participation SFVS to organizations that represent corporate rights (associations or unions) is found to be very low.
As of the type of food sold, the majority of SFVs sell cooked dishes: the most common ones are fish, eggs, chicken, rice (either plain, fried, jollof, curry, brown), banku, beef, waakye, tomato stew, talia (macaroni), kenkey.
One SFV out of seven sell natural or home-made snacks: mainly fried or roasted yam or plantain, bread and nuts. The same share sell pre-packaged industrial snacks.
Fruit is sold only by one out of ten SFVs: bananas, pineapples and papaya are the most common ones. Only one out of twenty sell vegetable salads.
As FAO highlighted in the past, Ghanaians should eat more fruit and vegetables. As of the beverages, industrial beverages, mainly carbonated soft drinks, are slightly more common than natural beverages (apart from sachet water and bottled water, we find coffee, herb tea and sobolo).
The great majority buy ingredients at traditional markets (mainly in Agbogboloshie and Makola markets), while only a few rely on supermarkets or supply directly from farmers or fishermen. Very rare are those SFVs who use self-produced ingredients.
Regarding the revenues, the average daily sales of one SFV add up to less than GHC 200. After fees, tax, and expenditures for ingredients and other overheads (on average GHC 130 per day), the average daily net income of a SFV ends up being less than GHC 70. Generally, 3.5 people rely economically on such income.
Regarding taxes, fees and levies that SFVs are expected to pay to be entitled to operate, data show that one third of them do not pay the annual Business Operating Permit fee (BOP) to AMA.
One fourth pay any fee for the use of the public space to the public local authority (15.5%) and/or to private land owners (15%); 11.5% of SFVs own the space where they operate. One fourth pay income tax to the Ghana Revenue Authority, while one half pay the local income tax due to AMA.
Despite the proven widespread informality of SFVs and their administrative invisibility, which puts them out of the direct control of the public authorities in charge of both, taxation and food control (in fact, four out of ten SFVs declare to have never been visited by food inspectors), a very positive outcome is highlighted by the survey, that is, the fact that the overall hygienic and safety conditions under which street foods are prepared and sold in Accra are found to be acceptable, in contrast to what is often stated or perceived by the public at large as much as by the legislative and executive authorities in charge of the regulation and management of the sector.
Assigning a score between -1 (very poor) and 1 (very good) to a series of hygiene and safety indicators, the overall score is found to be just above the basic line.
The quality of cooking tools (e.g. pots) and hobs gets the highest score, followed by the quality of the environment surrounding the selling points: uncovered organic waste is rarely found near-by; a few selling points are surrounded by dirt ground; most of the vendors are located at a safe distance from open air sewers; rubbish bins are available at most sites.
The supplies used to serve the food (containers, plates, cutlery) also get a good score: disposable containers are indeed widely used, while non-disposable ones are properly washed with soap.
Food preparation, storage, and display practices are also found to be quite safe: in particular, raw vegetables used to make salads are thoroughly washed with disinfectants; meat, fish and eggs are mostly fresh (although this positive aspect could be frustrated by the fact that such easily perishable products, despite are not always stored at a proper temperature before being cooked on the spot); cooked food is instead usually served at a proper temperature; food on display is adequately protected from dust and insects; leftovers are rarely sold, and when this happens, they are generally stored in the fridge overnight.
Finally, the availability and quality of water and washing supplies on the spot have a positive score: indeed, despite the fact that most vendors rely on water in buckets, while running water is rarely available, most of them have soap and/or hand sanitizers or can access to near-by toilets with running water.
Concerns are instead raised in relation to protective clothing – as SFVs rarely wear latex or plastic gloves and cover their hair – to selling points’ structural conditions – as most of them are stalls with no protective walls (although most of them have a roof and keep at a safe distance from trees that can leak bird droppings and leaves) and the stand on which the foods are displayed are often too close to the ground – and to the formal credentials held by the SFVs: most of them, in fact, did not undergo medical screening, nor attended training courses on food hygiene and safety, or have a valid food handling certificate.
By Stefano Marras and Mohamed Ag Bendech, FAO Regional Office for Africa, Accra (Ghana)
Amos Laar, School of Public Health, University of Ghana
