African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (Feb 2016)
An investigation into business practices of selected street food vendors at KwaDlangezwa, Northern KwaZulu Natal.
Abstract
Food businesses have become widespread in recent times in response to the changing lifestyle and food consumption patterns of people. They offer convenience and ease of access to food to busy individuals, who are unable to prepare their own meals regularly at home. In large scale cooking, food passes through many hands, thereby increasing the chances of food contamination due to improper handling. Food vendors have a prime role to play in food businesses and that is to guarantee that meals served are hygienic for consumption. Conscious contamination of such food places consumers at risk of suffering from food borne illnesses. The main aim of the study was to explore and document business practices of selected food vendors at Kwa-Dlangezwa with a view of business practices. The study targeted food vendors (N=8) on and off campus (University of Zululand), who prepared and sold food on site. This data is analysed using the Excel for Microsoft office to find out the statistic responses of respondents from the data collected and the same Excel was used to formulate graphs and table from the responses of participants. The results indicated that there was only one food vendor who have been in the food vending business for long period of time and they all faced a common challenges. Out of the eight food vendors two were responsible for also cashing up daily and the owner/managers were responsible for cashing up for the other six but record keeping and ordering was done by the owners/manager for all the food vendors. Only two out of the eight vendors received proper training on business practices.
