Informal food vendors: The invisible backbone of the world's food system

Informal food vendors are common in low‑income and middle‑income countries, where they sell items such as deep‑fried fish, vegetables, and hot meals from carts and kiosks. These vendors provide essential food security and livelihoods for more than a billion people. Globally, about 1. 23 billion people work in food systems, most of whom are informal and outside formal regulation.

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, unregistered or otherwise outside the reach of formal regulation. In low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) especially, informal vendors are not a marginal feature of how people eat; they are a linchpin of food security and livelihoods for over a billion people.

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