Consumer Insights on Street Food Safety: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices

Street food is culturally rooted in peoples’ everyday life making it a key domain for exploring the integration of nutrition, consumer behaviour and public health. This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of consumers towards consumption and safety of street foods while examining the association between consumer knowledge on food safety and street food consumption practices. A sample of 100 subjects in the age group of 15 to 35 years were selected from Meerut city (U.P.). Purposive snowball sampling technique was used. Collection of data was done through self-administered questionnaire in form of a google form. Mean, SD, frequency, N% and Pearson’s chi- square test was used for statistical analysis. Results demonstrated that the percentage of knowledgeable consumers towards food safety were 67% where 42.6% had a positive while 57.4% had a negative attitude towards street foods. It was found that 52% of the consumers had very good practices towards street food safety and consumption. The calculated value of chi square was 88.0626 which was greater than the tabulated value i.e., 16.919. Hence, a significant association was found between consumer knowledge and practices rejecting null hypothesis and alternate hypothesis was accepted.