News
Photo focus: Hygiene and the street food vendor
How pure is the water used to prepare drinks sold by this vendor? and how does he wash the glasses of his customers
Food and drink sold on the city’s pavements by street vendors ranging from drinks — prepared along dirty pavements– to lunch/dinner packets sold at open air food stalls are a common sight in towns and cities island-wide.
The street food vendors fill a void by providing an essential service to the city’s hard-working manual workers who have literally no choice but to quench their thirst and appease their hunger at these wayside outlets.
However, while the street food vendors provide an essential function by catering to their needs, what is of concern, is that these providers of food and drink to the poorer sections of our community don’t seem interested in adhering to basic hygienic standards.
The focus of Public Health Inspectors (PHIs) tends to be on monitoring food hygiene standards at restaurants and hotels. Street food vendors are rarely subject to scrutiny.
What would in everyone’s interest, including the vendors themselves, is for these vendors to be given a training in better food hygiene techniques.
A vendor prepares his ware
Another open-air ‘cool spot’ where the poorer folk go. A vendor ‘washes’ a glass with his limited supply of water
Bad Hygiene: Cooking in the open-air amidst the dirt and squalor of a busy Colombo street
A fruit seller at Pettah, in the not so hygienic market place