A STUDY OF THE SAFETY CONSUMER PERCEPTION AND CONSUMPTION OF THE STREET FOODS SOLD IN HISAR CITY, HARYANA

The present study was conducted in Hisar City of Haryana to assess the consumers’ perception,preference, safety aspects and consumption of street foods. It was found that 64% of working men and 24%of working women preferred one time meal basically lunch from street food vendors. Majority (36%) of girlstudents consumed street foods on alternate days while 40% of boys preferred street foods weekly. On anaverage 32% of students consumed street foods on alternate days followed by 30%, 24 % and 14% whoconsumed street food weekly, daily and fortnightly. It was found that the majority of working males were notbothered about the food hygiene (76%) and food quality (72%) while working women were more conscioustowards both food hygiene (64%) and quality (66%) of food sold. The working people were more sensitivetowards street food hygiene and quality in comparison to the students. It could be assumed that the studentswere more influenced by the taste of food and cared less for its hygiene and safety. The street food vendorstotally ignored the personal hygiene aspects which in turn could have a detrimental effect on the food safetyand hygiene. They were handling money (100%) while serving food and majority (96.7%) of them servedfood with bare hands which could be a potent source for introduction of microbes in the food. There is feltneed for in-depth study for finding out correlation between street food consumption and health of the Indianconsumers for reaching at more conclusive recommendations for consumers and the vendors, on thenutritional quality of food sold. There is urgent need to sensitize the consumers for demanding safe,hygienic and nutritious food and at the same time to train the street food vendors to cater to consumerdemand.