Street Food around the World: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This review aims to analyze the various studies dealing with street food. It is also called “street catering”, “the informal food sector”, “eating out”, “popular catering” or “food outside the home”… The persistence of street food is explained by rapid urbanization and the multiple constraints associated with it: distance between workplaces and home, poverty, lack of transport and canteens in the workplace. This sector provides jobs and allows the poor to eat more cheaply. Consumers of street foods are children, pupils, students, the unemployed, workers, men and women. Street food is sold by women and men, sometimes by children. Street food offers a wide range of foods, with different names, depending on the country. There are breakfast foods based on bread or sandwiches, cereal porridge, donuts, cookies, pastries, dairy products… Then there are the main dishes for lunch or dinner, which are often the traditional foods of family menus, grilled meats and industrial foods. Fruits and vegetables are also sold on the street. In the streets, traditional drinks are more popular than industrial drinks. Street foods are high in fat, carbohydrates and therefore very energetic. The street food sector accounts for 2% - 10% of jobs in the agricultural economy. Street meals are cheaper (US $0.1 - US $3) and sometimes account for more than 30% of household food expenditure. The evaluation of good handling practices and the microbial quality of street foods reveals that these foods present risks to the health of consumers and constitute a public health problem. In addition, the use of non-biodegradable plastic packaging for the sale of street food has negative health and environmental consequences. Globally, the street food sector is not regulated. This requires the establishment of control structures to clean up this sector and curb potential health and environmental hazards.