Factors Influencing Food Safety Practices Among Vendors:

Abstract

This study was intended to determine the factors influencing food safety Practices among vendors in Namuwongo basing on the background observation of the questionable activities of the food vendor in the area. The main Objective was; To establish the factors influencing food Safety Practices among vendors in Namuwongo and then suggest possible solutions.

The specific Objectives were; To determine the levels of knowledge on food safety among food vendors, establish food safety practices carried out by food vendors and to investigate other factors affecting food Safety Practices among food vendors in Namuwongo.

The study was cross sectional in nature and used a combination of both quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques. Data was collected from 385 respondents in Namuwongo zones A, B, Kanyogoga and Yoka in July 2012 from which it was analyzed using SPSS at Descriptive, Bivariate and multivariate level.

The major findings of the study were; females had a percentage of (51 %) while males were (49%), A large proportion (46%) of the respondents were in age group 21-30, majority (48%) had completed at least primary school and no respondents were found to be having reached diploma or degree level, The knowledge levels were moderate-only 66% knew of one correct way of maintaining food safety though the level of proper practices was low because only 53% of the vendors had a hand washing facility unlike the 29% who did not have any,19% re-used cooking oil twice or even more times, others (9%) were reported to be using Panadol as an unsafe food additive to save fuel. Only 37% of the respondents had a medical checkup only once in the past 2 years and 65% were found to be using polythenes for covering food during preparation. There was also a significant association between the following with food safety practices Age, as evidenced by the P-value of 0.035 and C.I (-0.041, 0.114), Education level with P-value 0.019, 95% C.I (-0.039, 0.003), Food safety knowledge with p-value 0.022, 95% C.I (-0.74, 0.018, Income levels with a p-value of 0.046 and 95% C.I (-0.051, 0.024), How often inspection is done had a p-value 0.032 and 95% C.I (0.006, 0.130) at 0.05 level of significance.

In Conclusion, there was a significant influence of Sociodemographic, Socioeconomic and Regulatory factors towards food safety Practices among vendors. Food safety education is a critical part of the overall strategy to reduce the incidence of food borne illness and complements most regulatory and other activities.

Most of the influencing factors are controllable and avoidable hence the need to recognize and address the issues concerned with food safety among vendors once and for all, like government should intensify health inspection of the food vendors in the country and especially at community level, Massive Sensitization and improving vendors’ capital is also required.