Operational Characteristics of Women Street Food Vendors in Rural South Africa

Abstract

ObjectiveTo characterize the operations of the street food enterprise in the Vhembe district, focusing on business profile, sold foods, inputs, pricing, record-keeping practices and total running cost.MethodsA descriptive cross-sectional face-to-face study of 511 vendors was done using a structured researcher-administered questionnaire comprising demographic and operational characteristics. Convenience sampling was used to choose the vending sites. Chi-square tests were conducted between four categorical variables (gender, age, marital status and citizenship) and operational characteristics. P-values were considered significant at p < 0.05. However, a Bonferroni adjustment decreased the significant value to p < 0.013.ResultsThe findings highlight the dominance of single middle-aged (35–44) women (63.1%) with some high school education. About 14% migrated from Zimbabwe. Most vendors were owners (86.1%), with 70.0% in business for at least 1–10 years. Food sold included mielie pap (stiff porridge) served with beef or chicken, sometimes with vegetables. Plate prices were R40.00 (2.6 USD) for a full plate and R30.00 (2 USD) for half a plate. The typical street food consumers were government officials, middlemen, and schoolchildren. Social media such as Whatsapp were used to communicate between the street food vendors and customers. The results highlight poor managerial skills as only 15.5% kept records, most of which were sales records (59.5%). On average, street vendors made a monthly profit of R3200.00 (213 USD) while spending R1800.00 (120 USD) on daily running expenses. There were statistically significant variations in some operational characteristics of vendor variables and gender, age, marital status, and citizenship.ConclusionsThere is a need for capital and management for small businesses and food training for rural street food vendors. Therefore, government officials, policymakers, and NGOs could target street vendors to offer training and microfinance to improve their business skills while promoting food safety and consumption of nutritious foods.

Value Chain Analysis of the Street Food Enterprises in the Rural Towns of Vhembe District, Limpopo Province

“…In the current study, we observed poor institutional support for street food vendors along the value chain of street food. In previous publication [26,27], we highlight that street food vendors have agreements amongst those selling vegetables whereby they take inputs on credits to pay after the sale, something absent from the formal retailer as street food vendors are not allowed to make any credits from the formal institutions. The study highlighted the support of the informal sectors such as transport because most street food vendors used public transport to fare the input to their stalls [40].…”

“…Culled layers, and beef offal gives street vendors a competitive advantage since these products are a by-product being sold from major poultry and beef processing facilities [27]. The same applies to green leafy vegetables which are purchased form Bakkies or produced by street vendors in their back yards.…”

“…Based on convenience the maize meal that is purchased gets augmented by by-products from maize processing facilities to create varieties, delicacies, and flavors (sour versus normal) of pap cooked the indigenous way. Also, these products mimic the indigenous and cultural meal that the customers mainly rural (82.2%), government employees (59.5%) and school children (41.5%) demand due to taste and value for money Figure 3 [27].…”

“…To achieve this, we used the six-steps VCA process by Porter [19] to explain the value chain activities of street food enterprises. The following steps were used in this study to conduct a VAC of the street food vendors in the Vhembe district rural towns: firstly, in our previous work [26,27], we described and defined the product sold by the street food vendors in the Vhembe district looking at the operational characteristics of the street food vendors (Step 1). This study sought to analyse the value chain of foods sold by the street food vendors in the Vhembe district town of the Limpopo province.…”

Bacterial Community in Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Sold in Streets and Open-Air Markets of Dakar, Senegal

“…In Senegal as in many LMIC, food safety remains one of the major concerns with multiple challenges. Street foods have developed strongly over the past thirty years [11,15,[23][24][25]. This phenomenon is linked to the combined effect of changing eating habits [19], rural exodus, population growth in cities and also due to the high annual production of horticultural products [21].…”