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A major 2016 FAO study found that women predominate in Ghana’s street food vendors. Extensive field research showed that of the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 street food vendors in Accra, Ghana’s capital, at least 90 percent are women. These women are mainly between 25 and 45 years old, and almost all of them rely on personal or family funds to finance their businesses.
Street food vending is a time-consuming business – vendors typically work six days a week, ten hours a day, not including the time spent shopping and preparing ingredients. Respondents to the FAO survey had been working as street food vendors for an average of eight years, suggesting that the industry is not only a temporary source of income but also a long-term employment option.
Accra’s Street Food Stories
Comfort, 27, is the poster child for the modern Accra street food vendor. Despite having a degree, she had trouble finding a job after university, so, she says, “I chose cooking because it’s my passion.” Comfort now wakes up at 5am every morning to buy ingredients at the market before setting up her stall at 8am. She sells a variety of food, but her favourite is cakes. “What makes me happy is cooking and baking cakes!” she says with a smile. To grow her business, Comfort even designed her own eye-catching branding and logo. Like any true entrepreneur, she knows that her corporate identity is just as important as the taste of her food.
Esther, 32, says the hardest part of her job is waking up at 2am. The mother of two starts selling ready-to-eat fruits at her stall in Accra at 5am every morning. Esther says she sells fruits because “they are healthy and customers like them”. She puts plastic bags on her hands as gloves and starts by cleaning a sharp knife with water (known as “pure water” in Ghana) gushing out of the polythene bag. Then, holding a ball of leaves, she takes out a pineapple, peels it, cuts it into small pieces and places it in a container. This is followed by mango, banana, watermelon and apple pieces before Esther closes the container and prepares to hand it to the customer with a smile and a thank you.
Hamida’s menu is dominated by local dishes: banku, jollof rice, tuo zafi, wakey, beef stew with eggs, shito, fried chicken and fish. The 32-year-old prepares all the food at home, then brings it to her stall in shiny pans and coolers, serving it on small plates with recyclable cutlery. When she’s not serving, she sits at a plastic table chatting with customers while tending to the baby. Then at 2pm, her sister takes over and Hamida leaves with the baby wrapped in a shawl, followed by her two older children.
Women’s career
The stories of Comfort, Esther and Hamida are common across Africa, where street food has boomed over the past 35 years, largely due to urbanization and its impacts.
On the one hand, increasing commuting distances and fast-paced urban life have driven demand for readily accessible, ready-to-eat and cheap food among urban Africans.
On the other hand, competition in the labor market is becoming increasingly fierce. Vulnerable groups such as women and ethnic minorities have difficulty finding jobs due to their lack of education and professional skills, and self-employment is often their only way to make a living.
Since street food stalls require little to no start-up capital and no formal education, it provides an ideal opportunity for women. With their cooking skills and kitchen utensils, and the help of unpaid family members (especially young daughters and sisters), it is one of the easiest ways for them to earn a living. This is also the main reason why street food stall businesses in most parts of Africa are dominated by women, except in countries where women’s economic activities are restricted.
Nutritious and safe street food
FAO research in Accra highlighted that street food vendors often operate in poorer areas of the city and near schools, meaning many poor children rely on them for nutrition. Thankfully, while street food vendors are not subject to government food regulation, overall hygiene and safety conditions on Accra’s streets have been shown to be of acceptable standards.
Nevertheless, vendors’ knowledge of hygiene, safety standards, food handling and storage has improved in recent years. Factors contributing to this progress include improved education levels and greater collaboration between local authorities and FAO.
In 2012-13, FAO, in collaboration with the Ghana Food and Drug Authority, successfully conducted capacity building courses on handling and storage for selected food vendors. These courses addressed challenges such as poor infrastructure and lack of fresh water. More recently, in 2016, FAO trained 14 research assistants from the University of Ghana’s School of Public Health on “Mobile Device-Based Data Collection for Monitoring Urban Street Food Vendors.” This training provided Ghana’s future national food inspectors with an excellent foundation in digital data collection techniques and methodologies.
Finally, supported by awareness campaigns targeting the general public, consumers in Ghana have also become more knowledgeable and demanding, pressuring suppliers to adopt improved practices and higher hygiene standards to meet the increasing public scrutiny.
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