Abstract:
Bakery products in which category Chapattis and samosas fall constitute a great percentage of snacks and take way foods consumed by large number of people in Uganda. They are among the categories of street vended foods in most trading centres in Uganda. Street food vending is one of the highly flourishing business in the informal sector which not only provides cheap and affordable ready to eat foods to its customers but also employment to a great deal of local people in Uganda. However, this informal business is largely left in the hands of local traders and therefore less inspected by government, but only on occasional basis. Therefore, issues of food hygiene and sanitation are sometimes compromised by these food vendors, and has created some levels of doubt about safety of these foods for human consumption but so far little has been done to investigate these. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the safety of bakery products sold in Nagongera Town council for human consumption. The analysis involved laboratory testing of food samples for pathogenic contamination and an informal field observation of hygienic practices of the food handlers with the help of a checklist. A total of 31 bakery foods of these food items; 23 chapattis and 8 samosas were collected from vendors in Nagongera town council at 9:00 am. The mean total plate count on was 1.0×10 cfu/g and 4.4×10 12 cfu/g on samosas and chapatti respectively, whereas the mean Salmonella count was 3.75×10 11 cfu/g and 3.57×10 11 cfu/g on samosas and chapatti respectively. The mean count of Staphylococcus on chapatti was 1.0×10 12 cfu/g and non was detected in samosas. Of the 23 chapattis sampled, 4 (17.4%) were contaminated with Salmonella spp, 1 (3.2%) was contaminated with Staphylococcus spp, of the 8 samples of samosas samples 1(12.5%) showed contamination with Salmonella spp, non (0%) of the samosas was contaminated with staphylococcus bacteria. Most of food vendors were operating under unhygienic conditions for example none of them had a hand washing facility, head gear, apron. All the contaminated food items had bacterial loads within the unsatisfactory level of permissible limits as per WHO standards therefore unfit for consumption by human beings. Standard safety food handling procedures should be employed by street food vendors to reduce this hazards that may result into food borne diseases.
Keywords: chapatti, samosas, contamination, street food vendors, hygienic practices.
