FOOD HYGIENE PRACTICES AMONG STREET FOOD VENDORS IN THE SAGNARIGU MUNICIPALITY OF THE NORTHERN REGION OF GHANA.

Abstract

Food hygiene is the conditions and measures necessary to ensure the safety of food from production to consumption. The Sagnarigu municipality in particular, majority of people depend mainly on street food and this accounts for the numerous food related health conditions within the municipality in most recent times. The research sought to assess the level of knowledge of food hygiene practices by street food vendors within the Sagnarigu municipality of the northern region of Ghana. The study adopted a cross sectional descriptive studies with mix methods that sampled 200 street food vendors using simple random sampling method. A structured questionnaire, interview guide as well as observational checklist were the main tools for data collection. The data which was obtained was cleaned using Microsoft excel and transported into SPSS version 24.0 for analysis. Pearson chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between socio demographic characteristics and hygiene practices. The findings indicated that most of the street food vendors were females comprising of 98% and about 48.4% had no form of formal education. Washing of dishes in clean soapy water and the use of apron were also significant with formal training on food handling (p < 0.05). The findings also showed that majority (88.9%) of food vendors have sufficient and appreciable knowledge when it comes to food hygiene. The study recommends that government should develop training programmes for food vendors to enhance their knowledge as well as capacity building of the food vendors and monitoring officials.