Do Customers of Street Food Vendors Know about Food Safety
Practices?
Gitasiswhara Gitasiswhara and Taufik Abdullah
Tourism Marketing Management Study Program, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Dr. Setiabudi, Bandung, Indonesia
Keywords: Food Safety, Customer’s Knowledge.
Abstract: The application of food safety by the street food vendors in Bandung-Indonesia is still questionable, it could
be seen by the method they use to sanitize the equipment and how they handle the foods. This should be a big
concern since almost all Indonesian people are their potential consumer. The customer of street food vendor
becomes the focus of this study because they made the purchase decision based on their knowledge about
food safety practices. This study was conducted to find out how much the knowledge that street food vendor’s
customers have regarding food safety. Descriptive method was used in this study and the data were collected
by using questionnaires. The respondents were 300 customers and also 300 street food vendors who usually
sell their food around Geger Kalong Street, Dipati Ukur Street and Cihampelas Street, which are three spots
where the street food vendors highly concentrate in Bandung. This study reveals that the customer is still lack
of knowledge about the application of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) and also about
the regulation related food safety applied in Indonesia. Hopefully, these results could be used as a reference
for the government to give more knowledge about food safety to the customer of street food vendors in
Bandung.
1 INTRODUCTION
Food is the very basic need of human being. It is
essential to life yet if contaminated, it can cause
illness and death (Griffith, 2006). The cases of food
poisoning that have been reported are relatively high
but no one really knows the exact number because
most of the cases are not reported. This Foodborne
disease is a major concern across the globe, it has a
serious impact on public health also on the economy,
tourism and trade (Taylor et al., 2015).
The United States Public Health Service in
Walker (2014: 260) stated that more than 40 diseases
can be transferred from food. World Health
Organization (December, 2015) reveals some facts,
that in unsafe foods contain bacteria, parasites, or
harmful chemicals, it can cause more than 200
diseases, from diarrhea to cancer. An estimated 600
million people, almost 1 in 10 people worldwide,
becomes ill from eating contaminated food and
420,000 people die each year, causing the loss of 33
million healthy life years (DALYs). The World
Health Organization (December 2015) also stated that
Africa and Southeast Asia has the heaviest burden of
handling foodborne diseases. Indonesia as a country
located in Southeast Asia is also an area prone to
foodborne illness.
The problem of food safety that arise in Indonesia
not only comes from household, the food and
beverage industry plays its role too, especially those
who are still in micro and small scale business. The
number of micro and small scale food service
industry are growing rapidly year after year. There are
still a lot of them who did not apply appropriate food
safety practice. This should be one of the Indonesia’s
biggest concern since their customer is wide range,
from elementary school student until adult people, not
only low economic class, but also wealthy people also
consume their product.
Although study said that majority of customers
were more interested in price and perceived product
quality than hygiene (Morrison, Caffin and Wallace,
1996). But customer perception about safety and
healthy menu was very important for food and
beverages industry. When customer assumed the food
was not safe, then there would be doubt to consume
it. According to Ghiselli (Almanza, et.al., 2014: 5),
since the customer didn’t know how the food was
produced, so they associated it safe to be consumed
by the level of hygiene that they saw.
Gitasiswhara, G. and Abdullah, T.
Do Customers of Street Food Vendors Know about Food Safety Practices?.
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Sociology Education (ICSE 2017) - Volume 1, pages 301-305
ISBN: 978-989-758-316-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
301

Most of the food safety studies discussed
microbial and technological food risks (Knight,
Worosz and Todd, 2009), one of the topics related to
it was food additives, experts already discussed it
since a long time ago (Snell & Snell, 1962; Philp,
1981; Wheelock, 1988). The purpose of this study is
to gain the knowledge about food safety of customers
who purchase street food vendor’s product. As stated
by A. J. Knight et al. (2009), variables like
knowledge, trust and socio-demographics were
associated with the level of concern about food safety.
Knowledge itself is the level of information a person
possesses about a particular risk (Knight, Worosz and
Todd, 2009). So customers have an awareness about
the risk that they will get from buying food from street
food vendors, and this awareness was built from their
knowledge level about food safety.
There were many experts who have already
discussed the perspective of the consumer toward
food safety. Some researchers studied about
consumer’s confidence about food safety (Smith &
Riethmuller, 1999; Jonge et al., 2004). MacLaurin,
MacLaurin, & Loi (2000) Examined the perception
and attitude of international air travellers about the
importance of food safety, while Hartwell & Edwards
(2001) studied the consumer opinion and the food
safety of two hospital food service systems so that
they could compare them. Andrew J. Knight, Worosz,
& Todd (2007) also studied about consumer
perceptions of food safety but in restaurants, they
found that many consumers believe that restaurants
were doing a good job, they were capable, and
committed to food safety. Later on their other works,
A. J. Knight, Worosz, & Todd (2009) also
investigated whether perceptions about food safety
were related to how often consumers eat at
restaurants. The results indicated that perceptions of
food safety influenced how often consumers eat at
restaurants. Other experts who studied about
consumer perception of food safety were Anderson,
Verrill, & Sahyoun (2011), they compared about food
safety perception between older and younger adult.
Miles et al., (2004) discussed about consumer’s
concern about food issues, they found that people
were more worried about technological food hazards
compared to lifestyle hazards. Buchler et al. (2010)
also stated in their study that overall people were
more concern about modern risk more than about
traditional risk. They explained that modern risk in
food safety are related to food additives and
regulation, and traditional risk is more about food
contamination. There were also researchers who
studied about consumer attitude and knowledge about
food safety, the results were many consumers still
lack on implementing food hygiene practice/ food
safety behaviour (Worsfold & Griffith, 1997; Hudson
& Hartwell, 2002; Clayton, Griffith, & Price, 2003;
Redmond & Griffith, 2005) and lack of knowledge
about food safety (Redmond & Griffith, 2005; Todt,
Muñoz, González, Ponce, & Estévez, 2009). Talas,
Ucar, & Ozcelik (2010) found that food safety
attitude related to the educational level of the women,
the score of food safety attitude increased with
educational level, this is proved that education is
really important.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
Food safety could be achieved by performing good
food handling practice, it also related to employee
behaviour when they process the food. Any
unhygienic behaviour when handling the food could
contaminate it and causes foodborne disease (Nik
Husain et al., 2016). When food that is intended for
consumption has contaminated by microbiology and
doesn’t get any further treatment, it becomes high-
risk foods (Hartwell and Edwards, 2001).
“Food hygiene is the creation and maintenance of
healthful or hygienic conditions” (Amjadi and
Hussain, 2005). Food hygiene standard becomes
something really important since early of the 20th
century, it was emerging in the post war-era when
scientists and bureaucrats involved to eliminate
threats to the food supply (Ramsingh, 2014). Good
hygiene can be achieved by correct storage, hygienic
preparation, thorough cooking and ensuring that high-
risk foods are not kept in ambient conditions
(Hartwell and Edwards, 2001). Clayton et al. (2003)
in their study found that consumers believe
preventing stage is the most important phase to keep
food safe, three actions in this stage that considerably
important are “hand washing”, “cleaning”, and “using
different utensils”, continued with cooking
thoroughly, storing foods correctly. Followed by
keeping raw and cooked foods separately, keeping
foods covered, checking foods have not gone off, and
keeping foods at the correct temperature. Amjadi &
Hussain (2005) also stated that to achieve successful
food hygiene system must consist these components:
(1) maintain food in safe condition from purchasing
until it is served to the customer, (2) developing
hygienic behaviour in the employees who have
contact with food, (3) maintain clean and sanitary
facilities, and (4) apply adequate pest control
management system. In general, Amjadi & Hussain
(2005) compile those components into four factors
which are: food, people, facilities and vermin. Taylor
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et al. (2015) also explained the food safety culture
excellence model that consists of people, process,
purpose and proactivity.
There is one well-known method to ensure food is
safe to be consumed. That method is Hazard Analysis
and Critical Control Point (HACCP) Payne-Palacio
and Theis (2009: 82) explained that this is a
systematically approach of program and inspection to
identify hazard which can be a potential of arising
illness from food and using procedure base on science
to eliminate and control the hazard.
The responsibility to maintain food safety is not
only on the food handler or food service industry, but
also on the government. Wilson et al. (2015) in their
study stated that food regulators have a key role in
communicating information to the consumer that
could be done in two ways, proactive and reactive
communication. In that study, the consumer said that
they do not have a good understanding about food
regulation. Elizabeth & Griffith (2006) also said that
public has perception that local authorities should
provide food safety information for consumers. It has
to be effective, directly targeted to the community, so
they can understand and apply food safety practice.
3 METHODS
This study is a descriptive study and data were
collected through questionnaire. Questionnaires were
distributed to 300 respondents who bought and
consumed food from the street food vendor in
Bandung which is a City located in West Java
Province - Indonesia. They were distributed in three
areas in Bandung which street food vendors were
concentrated, those are Geger Kalong, Dipati Ukur
and Cihampelas.
Generally, the items in the questionnaire were
classified into six categories of total 66 questions,
they were questioning about: (1) personal hygiene,
(2) purchasing and receiving, (3) storing, (4)
production, (5) cleaning and sanitation, and also (6)
HACCP and regulation. The items about personal
hygiene, storing, production, cleaning and sanitation
were inspired by the explanation from Gisslen (2011),
while the items about purchasing and receiving were
adopted from Walker (2014), those experts explained
about all good practices in those activities. The
questions about HACCP and regulation only contain
two questions of well the customers know about
HACCP and the regulation in Indonesia.
All of the items were using the 5-point scale (5 =
‘Know very well’, 4 = ‘know’, 3 = ‘quite know’, 2 =
‘lack of knowledge’, 1= ‘know nothing’). After
respondent answered the questionnaires, then the data
were processed so the average scores of each
dimensions appears. The average answers from
respondent then converted into the five classification
that is shown on Table 1.
Table 1: Classification of Average Score.
Range
Classification
4,20 – 5,00
Know very well
3,40 – 4,19
Know
2,60 – 3,39
Quite Know
1,80 – 2,59
Lack of Knowledge
1,00 – 1,79
Know nothing
4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Customer may not involve in producing food but they
should know how to produce food safely, so they can
assess and choose the right street food vendors based
on how they handle the food. This table shows the
recapitulation of respondent’s answers about their
knowledge of food safety. The level of knowledge
was decided based on classification in Table 1.
Table 2: Recapitulation of Consumer’s Food Safety
Knowledge.
No
Dimensions
Average
Answer
Level of
knowledge
1
Personal
hygiene
3,78
Know
2
Purchasing and
receiving food
3,58
Know
3
Storing food
3,42
Know
4
Producing
food
3,45
Know
5
Cleaning and
sanitation
3,36
Quite know
6
HACCP &
Regulation
2,16
Lack of
knowledge
3,47
Know
Based on Table 2 Recapitulation of Consumer’s
Food Safety Knowledge, the highest average answer
is about the personal hygiene of food handler.
Customers were certainly very concerned about the
personal hygiene of food handler, because it is one of
the characteristics that are easily visible to them.
While assessing the food handler’s hygiene, they also
build the perception about the food hygiene and
sometimes relate it one another. It got the highest
score because basically everybody has already tried
to practice good personal hygiene in their life,
especially when preparing food.
Do Customers of Street Food Vendors Know about Food Safety Practices?
303

The lowest score of customer’s knowledge about
food safety was about how to clean and sanitize the
area of food production including its equipment and
also about HACCP and the regulation. As a customer,
it was very reasonable if they did not know about
HACCP, since it is one of the complex procedure to
minimize food contamination. But the customer
should know more about the regulation and especially
about cleaning and sanitation. They need to
understand the regulation because this is one way to
protect themselves from anything that street food
vendors give that will become a disadvantage for
them. They also need to improve their knowledge of
how to clean and sanitize the area of food production
and its equipment because these are the activities that
most of them will actually do it almost every day.
From questions related personal hygiene, most of
the average answers were the customer already
‘know’ of how food handler should apply their
personal hygiene. The only two questions that only
got average answers ‘quite know’ were about: 1) food
handler should not use a ring, earrings, wristwatch,
bracelet or piercing, and 2) food handler should not
touch their face, eyes, hair and arm frequently.
Customer’s highest average score about food
handler’s personal hygiene were the worker have to
wash their hands after they used the toilet and they
have to close their mouth and nose when they cough
and sneeze.
The customer’s highest knowledge about
purchasing and receiving was that raw material
should be bought and received in clean condition. The
Customer only ‘quite know’ that the temperature of
raw material which was bought in cold condition
should be checked and all material that has been
bought should be marked by its receive date so food
handlers know when the food will be spoil.
From the dimension of storing food, there were
several average answers which only were classified in
‘quite know’, some of those were: 1) The temperature
of storing food in cold and freeze condition, 2) Food
should not be put touching the wall 3) Food should be
wrap when stored in refrigerator but give some air
circulation.
In producing food, some of the question that only
got average answer ‘quite know’ were: 1) Do not
place anything on the cutting board, except raw
materials, knives and equipment used on the cutting
board, 2) The perishable food should not be stored
outside the refrigerator, 3) Limit the amount of time
where food / raw materials are in danger zone
temperatures, 4) Obey the four hours’ rule, 5) Tasting
the food properly, 6) Boil the sauces, soups and
vegetables before serving, 7) Cooling food properly.
Customer highest average score about the production
was that they have to use clean raw materials.
Some questions that still in the level ‘quite know’
about cleaning and sanitizing were: 1) Use metal trash
cans, 2) How washing the dishes properly, 3) How to
wash kitchen equipment properly, 4) How to clean the
kitchen area properly (using soap and clean cloth,
then rinse and let it dry naturally), 5) Use insect-proof
net on every air circulation in the kitchen, 6) Always
closed the kitchen door, 7) There should be no hole in
the kitchen floor and wall, 8) There should be no
corner that can be used by insect or pest to hide.
5 CONCLUSIONS
There was no single question which got the average
score that could be classified as ‘know very well’.
Overall Customers of street food vendors in Bandung
‘know’ how to apply food safety practices that should
be done by the food handlers. Though their level of
knowledge has to be improved, this could be seen in
the discussion that there were still many questions
about good food handling practices that only got the
classification of ‘quite know’. The role of
government is really needed so the community could
be more aware and more knowledgeable about food
safety practices and also regulations related to it.
Government need to be more active in socialize all of
that information. Furthermore, when the customer’s
food safety knowledge is really good, they could be
an agent/ partner for government to take part in
assessing street food vendors food safety practices.
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