Street foods are affordable ready to eat foods that can be found nearly in every corner of the world. These products are usually prepared and sold along the streets hence are exposed to numbers of potentially hazardous contaminants especially from pathogenic microorganisms that causes food borne diseases. The goal of this study is to determine if street foods sold in Zamboanga City are safe for human consumption. With this goal, this study aimed to determine the knowledge and practices of street food vendors on food handling while the food safety of street foods sold were evaluated through microbial analysis. This is a cross sectional descriptive study and used a multi-staged sampling method. A total of 81 street food vendors were included in this study. Their knowledge and practices were determined through questionnaires and observations. Furthermore, 88 samples of street foods and sauces were collected and analyzed for their microbial quality. Results of the study showed that street food vendors have adequate knowledge on food handling (69%). Moreover, the claimed practices on food handling were positive with a mean score of 3.07. However, these knowledge and claimed practice were not translated into good actual practices on food handling. Street food vendors were observed to be unhygienic. Out of 88 street food samples, 37 (42%) were positive for coliform growth, 18 (20%) for E. coli, 25 (28%) for S. aureus, and 8 (9%) for Salmonella. Furthermore, only 8 (18%) out of 44 street food stalls were tested negative for microbial growth on both street food and sauce. With these results, this study concluded that the food safety of most of the street foods sold in Zamboanga City is questionable and unsafe for public consumption.

Keyword: Street food vendors Food handling and the food safety of street foods