Resilience of Street Food Vendors of Lucknow during COVID-19 Pandemic

Street food vending provides employment opportunities as well as easily accessible foods to millions of people across the world. Street food vending is among the general choices of migrants from rural areas, as the overhead is low as compared to setting up a permanent registered business. They have a large share in the unorganized sector of any developing country’s economy. Although many studies are available with basic information on street food vendors and food safety, very few have emphasized the need to understand how their income is interrelated with their personal and perceptual factors. Therefore, understanding their personal prospects and needs is crucial to providing them with a conducive vending environment in which to run their business. A detailed and intriguing analysis of the personal, social, and economic factors affecting the business of street food vending during COVID-19 in Lucknow is presented with the help of suitable visualizations and tables. The study also represents the resilience of street food vendors of Lucknow during COVID-19 as they were hit the hardest economically but not personally. A brief analysis of the relationships among the various personal and economic aspects has also been added to the study. Data collection was done by conducting a primary survey in 10 different areas of Lucknow using random and purposive sampling approaches, and the number of samples collected was 90, with a response rate of 0.84. Some of the key findings of this study include a consistent change in income with the level of confidence of the street food vendors in their individual future and that of their family or children.