Ghana Street Food Project

StreetFood Ghana Street Food Project

The Ghana Street Foods Project is a partnership between the University of Copenhagen, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the Food Research Institute with the aim of Enhancing the performance and growth potential of street food vending for accelerated socio-economic development in Ghana.

The goal of the Project is to provide research-based knowledge that will improve understanding in the urban street food vending subsector and thereby provide the basis for developing small businesses which will be a viable tool for economic growth and development in Ghana.

Specific Objectives

To map out and describe the regulatory and institutional set-up and dynamics of the urban street food vending sector in Ghana
To obtain in-depth understanding on constraints, practices and perceptions of Street Food Vendors and their customers.
To assess the performance and economic viability of street food vending
To formulate strategies to address business-related constraints
To assess the food quality and food safety in selected segments of street food vendors and identify critical control points to improve safety and quality.
To disseminate and communicate research findings to scientific communities, international organizations, local stakeholders and general public

Research

The Street foods project is organized in five Work Packages (WP) which captures the various themes in the project.

Work Package 1

Sound project management is essential for successful projects. This project involves researchers drawn from various institutions jointly working on various Work Packages. WP1 seeks to plan, launch and manage the project effectively.

Work Package 2 –Stakeholder practices, perceptions and institutional settings.

WP 2 seeks to map and describe the regulatory and institutional set-up and dynamics of the urban street food vending sector in Ghana and to obtain in-depth understanding on practices and perceptions of Street Food Vendors and their customers.

This work package takes a social science approach to generate in-depth understanding on the institutional and regulatory environment, stakeholder practices and perceptions as well as the socio-cultural and business-related constraints and challenges in the street food vending sector in Ghana.

PhD Student: John Boulard Forkuor
Principal PhD Supervisor: Dr. K.O. Akuoko
Co-Supervisor: Thilde Rheinlander

Work Package 3 – Performance and growth of street food vending enterprises

This WP aims at improving understanding on optimizing entrepreneurial capacity of SFVs and overcoming business-related constraints to make the subsector a more viable tool for economic growth in Ghana. The profitability and growth of small enterprises is constrained by a number of factors, such as limited access to credit, lack of skills and knowledge, regulatory barriers and failures to take advantage of collective action, for example in marketing or purchase of inputs. This work package works at identifying the most important constraints to the performance of food vending enterprises in urban Ghana and test strategies to address the constraints.

PhD Student: James Osei Mensah
Principal PhD Supervisor: Kwasi Ohene-Yankyera
Co-PhD Supervisor: Thomas Markussen

Work Package 4 – Food quality and safety

This WP addresses food safety, one of the highest ranked constraints to growth of the street food vending sector. This work package will take a HACCP (Hazard Analysis of Critical Control Points) approach and initially identify main food safety hazards along the chain of preparation, storage and sale of street vendor foods. Critical Control Points (CCPs) will be identified, evaluated/quantified and control measures developed.

PhD Student: Mrs Gloria Ankar-Brewoo
Principal PhD Supervisor: Robert Abaidoo
Co-PhD Supervisor: Anders Dalsgaard

Work Package 5- Dissemination of project findings

The project has an elaborate dissemination plan to communicate research findings effectively to the scientific and non-scientific stakeholders. This will be done in a variety of traditionally and locally adapted ways, including dialogue with government departments, non-governmental organizations, policy makers and the street food vendors.

WP Leader: Paa Nii Johnson
Co-Researcher: Bernard Keraita