Nairobi residents raise concern over poor handling of street foods

A number of residents of Nairobi are silently worried at how some street food vendors handle foods sold to customers.

This has raised debate over food safety among residents of Nairobi.

"Some lone food vendors often juggle between handling money, food, greeting people, with their hands, handling their phones to check payments made, and they never actually wear gloves to ensure high hygiene standards,” said Stephen Mong’are, a tout in Embakasi.

According to Stephen, many Nairobians, especially in the informal industry, have no time to grab a proper meal and so have to visit small food stands and kiosks to eat something quickly.

“It's hard to find a street food vendor wearing gloves, or covering their hair when handling food. It can be disgusting, but then what do you do?” posed Stephen.

Some food vendors are said to use dirty water to wash fruits, tomatoes, onions, or even clean their hands.

June Odek, an office worker in Westlands told Wananchi Reporting that he has seen food handlers using the same bucket of water for prolonged periods of time  – dipping everything in it.

“One look at the bucket of water can make your stomach churn,” he says.

“You find them washing everything in that same dirty water; with the vendor dipping their dirty hands into the same bucket of water a hundred times,” said Odek.

Miriam Wairimu, a vegetable vendor at Muthurwa market said she sells coriander, tomatoes, onions and pepper to some of the street food vendors all the time.

“Some will ask for good-looking, fresh tomatoes and fruits, while others will specifically want something 'cheap'."

"I think it helps them because often you will find the tomatoes, onions and pepper already cut and put in a container, and so you don’t get to see what it looked like,” says Wairimu.

Although many residents who spoke to Wananchi Reporting have applauded the recent efforts made by the Nairobi County Chief Officer Environment, Mr. Geoffrey Mosiria, they feel that a lot more need to be done.

The recent push by Nairobi County to launch a new food safety manual to help street food vendors improve hygiene practices and reduce health risks for both sellers and customers has also been applauded.

According to the World Health Organization, food safety, nutrition and food security are inextricably linked.

That an estimated 600 million – almost 1 in 10 people in the world – fall ill after eating contaminated food and 420 000 die every year.

Meanwhile, children under 5 years of age carry 40 per cent of the foodborne disease burden, with 125 000 deaths every year.

Residents now want stricter rules to be put in place to ensure proper food handling, to help keep away health related hazards some of which can be devastating.