Analytical Evaluation of Food Safety Knowledge and Practices of Street Food Vending in the Philippines

This study explores the disparity between the food safety knowledge and practices of street food vendors in a developing country. A purposive survey to determine the knowledge and practices of street food vendors was conducted on 36 street food vendors. The food safety knowledge of the street vendors was tested under five factors, as adopted in the literature. Through a chi-square goodness-of-fit test, a disparity between the food safety knowledge and practices of street food vendors was observed. Moreover, a structural modeling technique was adopted to analyze the interrelationships between food safety knowledge factors and practices. As a result, it was found that most of the food safety knowledge impact their counterpart factors on food safety practices. Likewise, such factors on food safety knowledge are crucial in explaining the reported food safety practices. When mapping the food safety knowledge.of the street food vendors to their practices, it was found that street vendors have a high level of food safety knowledge but low in actual practice, as evidenced by poor food handling practices among street food vendors which also significantly differs from the established standards. The results in this study provide crucial insights into the literature in developing a holistic view of the dynamics of street food vending. Moreover, the results may be beneficial to stakeholders as it may aid them in the development of management and policy initiatives that may be crucial in addressing the contemporary issues of street food vending in developing countries.