Abstract

Quality analysis of street-vended food enterprises and street food vendors from the Coimbatore city, Tamil Nadu, India was carried out. This research reveals that, handling and trading practices of street vendors are not hygienic enough to obtain a safe food. These street-vended foods are easily contaminated by food borne pathogens, due to the poor quality of water used and the poor sanitary procedures in preparation and storage of foods. Street-vended foods (10 items) sold by street vendors obtained from the locale were found to have microbial load representing E. coli and Salmonella sp. 70% of the food samples collected from street vendors have shown high bacterial load. Results have demonstrated the non-hygienic quality of most popular types of street vended foods. The pressing need as indicated by WHO is that, there must be measures imposed by the Food Safety Authorities, to follow proper control measures to improve microbial quality of the street vended foods.

Key words: Microbiological food quality, street vended foods, food safety indicators.