International Journal of Education and Research Vol. 6 No. 3 March 2018 31 SANITARY CONDITIONS OF FOOD VENDING SITES AND FOOD HANDLING PRACTICES OF STREET FOOD VENDORS: IMPLICATION FOR FOOD HYGIENE AND SAFETY Prof. Criselda Alamo-Tonelada, MBA, CHE, Mr. Ferdinand Y. Silaran, MBA, Ms. Maria Cristina A. Bildan Department of Hotel and Restaurant Management College of Business and Accountancy, Tarlac State University Tarlac City, Philippines dang_alamo@yahoo.com Abstract—Unsanitary environment, the lack of awareness of food safety regulations, poor knowledge of hygiene and improper food handling practices among the food vendors can contribute to outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. This study aims to investigate the food safety knowledge and practices of street food vendors and to assess the sanitary conditions of street vended foods of Tarlac State University, Main Campus. A survey questionnaire and observation checklist on employees’ knowledge of food hygiene and their practices as well on sanitary conditions of the street food vending activities in the area were used. Convenience sampling method was used to thirty mobile and stationary food vendors selling street foods. From the total of 30 respondents, majority of those involved in the food vending business are the female (60%). Half of the total of the respondents had attained secondary education (50%). Majority of the respondents (80%) equally did not have any training on food safety and were not aware of food safety law. Most of the respondents vended food items in an environment that is observed to be clean (3.57), with the presence of waste bin, hand towel, and hand soap. It appears that the sites had presence of flies, rats/cockroaches, and not totally eradicated in the areas. Vended foods are protected through covered food containers ensuring food safety. It was found from the results of the study that street foods were vended under relatively good sanitary conditions. Keywords. Food Safety, Street Vended Food, Practices, Food- borne Illnesses I. INTRODUCTION Street foods are enjoying increasing patronage due to urbanization which is forcing many city dwellers to eat their major daily meals out of home. 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. These attributes are linked to the culinary prowess of the vendors. Akinyele (1998) reported the significant contribution of street foods to nutrition and food security for millions of practitioners along the chain. Draper (1996) also identified them as potential vehicles for micronutrient fortification (Alimi, 2016). Street food vending activities in most developing countries are mostly outside the regulation and protection of the governments. The economic importance of the activities is not well appreciated due to the informal nature of the enterprise and lack of official data on volume of trade involved (Alimi, 2016). Street food vending makes up the significant proportion of informal sector of the economy of most developing countries. About 28.5% labor force in Mexico were reportedly employed in the informal sector, 30.8% of the activities in this sector were in the street food which employed over 120,000 vendors in Mexico city alone in 1998 (Estrada-Garcia, Cerna, Thompson, Lopez- Saucedo, 2002). Dawson and Canet (1991) reported that street food vending in Malaysia is a multi-million US dollar trade providing direct employment for over 100,000 vendors with gross annual sales volume of about 2 billion US dollars. Hiemstra et. al. (2006) also mentioned the significant contribution of microbusinesses made up largely of street food sector to the economy of Vietnam. Malaysia, Philippines and India are the three countries which have regulations for protecting street vendors. Malaysia is the only country where licensed street vendors are provided facilities for conducting their trade. An initiative has been taken in Africa, where a coalition between local and national authorities, explored the food laws associated with street vending and developed strategies that could be used to control identified food hazards. Another policy was framed in Durban, Africa, where the street vendors were allocated specific areas to operate, issued certificate of acceptability and were also given training on essential food hygiene practices. In India, CII Institute of Quality’s Food Safety and Quality (FSQ), has taken an initiative to create awareness among the consumers and street food vendors and it has issued a simple informative checklist of hygienic practices, called the “CII-14 point checklist on food safety for street vended food” which emphasizes