Flame on the Street: Street Food Safety Practices and Business Conditions in Lucena City

There are many street foods on sale in the city of Lucena. Street foods are mostly spotted near the schools, bus or jeep terminals, church, and parks. Enthusiast counts that street foods are delicious, convenient, practical and best of all economical. Prices of these street foods cannot go beyond P20.00.With the increase in prices of basic food, street foods have now become part of the common peoples’ cuisine and the home for many low income people. Despite of its popularity it provokes some serious concerns since common foods available in this type of business are unprotected to diverse types of impurity. The rationale of this study was conceptualized to improve the mis en place (preparation) practices of the street vendors towards the safety of its consumers from preparation to delivery of products or services. Hawkers were asked about their knowledge on food safety practices and evaluate existing predicament government actions towards tolerating the expansion of food vendors, as well as getting the hawkers awareness about the capability on preparation of serving their own course of product, opening personal profiles such as socio-economic and demographic status and perceptions when it comes to handling/preparing food and the other related facts. A total of 135 hawkers from diverse points of Lucena were studied and observed. Hawkers mostly ambulatory and female are of legal age and living in the food threshold level and are engaged in selling ihaw-ihaw and fish balls/squid balls/kikiam and with insignificant income to support their necessaries. Limited number has permit and mostly are ambulatory. Moreover, street food vending pays significantly to household food spending and provides an income to many female-headed households but the poor hygiene contribute significantly to potential food contamination. While vendors are informed but a number do not fully understand why they have to do such routines which made them neglect to do what is proper. In fact, they recognized basics of food hygiene and sanitation vis-à-vis health and personal hygiene and safe manufacturing procedures but the unnecessary habits of some food vendors fail to consistently apply them. There are hawkers who respect the provisions of the city but roughly 40% are trading their products to the public with proper coordination to the officials. With this, city government efforts related to overall knowledge of food safety such as food contamination and poisoning, sanitation problems, and hygiene practices were imperfectly fulfilled.