This study shows that customers’ trust in vendors, to some extent, replaces
biomedical food safety concerns. This adds to the importance of social notions of
hygiene, since trust in food is also created via trusted social relationships with a
known vendor. Such trends of high personal trust in vendors were also found among
vendors and consumers in an Ugandan street food study.21 Hansen et al.9 stress that
trust, in some instances, is a coping strategy for consumers’ lack of knowledge about
food risks. In this study, consumers’ strong reliance on personal trust in vendors
might happen to counter balance the lack of strong official associations to ensure
standards and food safety in the street food sector in Ghana today. It seems to be a
natural risk avoidance strategy, stemming from the lack of insight into the facilities
962 RHEINLÄNDER ET AL.
of street food production. However, consumers did not seem to put trust in vendors
because of certainty of vendors’ knowledge of food safety. Rather, trust was
exclusively based on social and personal affiliations.