From market stalls to healthier communities: Viwandani vendors leading the way to nutritious and safe food access in Nairobi's informal settlements
In Nairobi’s Viwandani informal settlement, 100 fruit and vegetable vendors are co-creating solutions to improve food safety, nutrition, livelihoods, and access to affordable, healthy produce.
- food environment
- Markets
- food systems
- nutrition
From market stalls to healthier communities: Viwandani vendors leading the way to nutritious and safe food access in Nairobi's informal settlements
In Nairobi’s Viwandani informal settlement, 100 fruit and vegetable vendors are co-creating solutions to improve food safety, nutrition, livelihoods, and access to affordable, healthy produce.
In many Kenyan neighbourhoods, the food environment consists of mainly informal vendors, who, together, play a central role in shaping what many households consume every day. They influence individual and household food choices, thereby impacting nutrition and health outcomes. Informal fruit and Vegetable (F&V) vendors, popularly known as ‘Mama Mbogas’, are the most important point of access to fresh, healthy produce for families, especially in low-income urban informal settlements where affordability, proximity, and convenience matter the most. Despite their significance, most F&V vendors do not fully understand the critical role they play in the food system by linking consumers to healthy diets in these resource constrained settings.