| Sumario: | Africa bears the highest per capita burden of foodborne disease globally, and much of this is the result of consumption of fresh foods sold in traditional or informal markets. These include open public markets, small shops, kiosks or dukas, street food and food sold in pubs and eateries. Recent evidence suggests the informal sector is likely to persist for years if not decades.
The informal food sector is vast, un-organised, heterogeneous, and poorly regulated. While these characteristics make food safety assurance difficult, the informal sector also provides an essential service in ensuring availability of nutritious, affordable food while providing livelihoods for millions of poor people many of them women. The challenge is hence to reduce the health and environmental risks emanating from these markets while securing or increasing the nutrition and livelihood benefits.
While earlier research into food safety in informal markets focused on understanding the risks, burden, risk factors and priority hazards, recent years have seen the start of research into risk management options. One of the most promising is the “Three-Legged Stool” approach which argues that food safety in informal markets can be improved if, and only if, three aspects are simultaneously tackled 1) building an enabling regulatory environment; 2) ensuring training and technologies for value chain actors; and 3) getting incentives in place for behavioural change.
We report on six recently completed projects using this approach to address 1) milk sold by informal vendors in Kenya; b) chicken sold by street restaurants in Burkina Faso; c) meat produced in local abattoirs in Kenya; d) beef sold in small butchers in Ethiopia; e} tomatoes sold by market vendors in Ethiopia; and f) vegetables sold by market vendors in Nigeria.
These projects used a variety of ways to engage with authorities and train farmers and likewise a diversity of appropriate technologies and incentives for behaviour change. They varied in their ability to improve actor knowledge, attitude and practice, in reducing foodborne disease risk, and in the effectiveness of incentives deployed. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the different strategies and make recommendations for future research.
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