Condições higiênico-sanitárias de alimentos prontos para consumo comercializados por ambulantes no município de Ouro Preto-MG.

Abstract

The sanitary-hygienic conditions of the ready-to-eat street vending commerce in Ouro Preto-MG have been evaluated through a checklist and microbiological analysis. All sales points analyzed have presented precarious conditions in food manipulation and/or processing, since they have fulfilled less than 50% of the items in the checklist. The analysis in blocks allowed the verification that the personal hygiene was the item which presented the lowest adequacy level (16,7%), followed by the good practices in production and sale of the food (33,8%), hygiene of utensils, equipment, carts/ trailers (36,2%) and buildings and installations (36,7%). Among the 15 vendors in the survey, most were men, aged between 31 and 40 years-old, educated up to the secondary school level, working for 10 to 15 years and characterized as fixed vendors. Unemployment is the main reason for the choice of this profession and the flow of people is the main reason to determine the location for work. Only one of the vendors reportes receiving training in good practices and none of them have health certificate. The knowledge concerning hygiene notions is limited, however, the forms of toxic infection transmission are familiar to the majority. Microbiological analysis has shown the risk of contamination of the food produced by vendors. Among the 26 samples analyzed, contamination by estafilococos enterotoxin potential producers was found in 4 (15,4%) and coliform at 45º C in disagreement in 2 (7,7%). The results allowed the confirmation of the precarious hygiene conditions of the street food vending commerce evaluated and the establishment of guidelines for the systematized intervention of the Municipal Sanitary Organ in Ouro Preto.