{
  "id": 12971888,
  "title": "Informal food vendors: The invisible backbone of the world's food system",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/08/informal-food-vendors-the-invisible-backbone-of-the-worlds-food-system",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-10-08T22:40:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Phys.org",
    "slug": "phys-org",
    "url": "https://phys.org/news/2026-10-food-vendors-invisible-backbone-world.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Informal food vendors play a crucial role in the global food system, employing an estimated 1.23 billion people worldwide, with the majority of these jobs concentrated in low-income and middle-income countries. Despite their significance, research on this workforce is fragmented and lacks consistent definitions, as highlighted in a new systematic scoping review in Food Policy.\n\nThe study, conducted by a team of international institutions, examined 327 studies published since 2000 across 64 countries. Key findings include the lack of a universally agreed-upon definition of informal food vending, with definitions varying based on location, licensing, or the presence of a physical stall. This inconsistency hampers the development of targeted policies.\n\nGender is a pervasive factor in the lives of these vendors, with women constituting the majority of informal food vendors. The review identified gender-specific patterns, such as spatial segregation in fish markets and exclusion from public spaces and credit opportunities. In Dhaka, researchers observed men avoiding police encounters by having their wives take over during arrests, illustrating the vendors' ability to navigate sociopolitical constraints.\n\nInformal food environments rely heavily on relationships and social infrastructure, rather than mere transactions. This \"social infrastructure\" enables supply chains, risk-sharing, and legitimacy for work that is often unrecognized by formal systems. For policymakers, the key recommendation is to move beyond the formal/informal binary and instead focus on the continuum of informality. Basic infrastructure, such as water, electricity, designated vending zones, and cold storage, as well as gender-responsive financial inclusion and social protections for informal workers, emerged as the most consistent policy recommendations across the reviewed studies.",
  "summary": "Walk through almost any city or town in a low-income or middle-income country and you'll pass them: the woman selling deep-fried fish from a cart, the mobile vendor with a bicycle full of vegetables, the kiosk operator who's the only source of a hot meal within walking distance. Food systems employ an estimated 1.23 billion people globally, and a majority of those jobs are informal—unlicensed,…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}