Street food vending is a full time occupation. It is closely bound to the area of residence, and the vendors have deep roots in the local community. Street food vending is also a highly competitive business and adjusts quickly to new markets. In low income areas, particularly at the fast changing urban fringes where the fonnal sector is not yet strongly present, the vendors play an important role. As in the case of Matariya, they offer invaluable services to the community. The needs of the customers for cheap food are being met within these quarters by a highly flexible supply structure, ranging from mobile vendors for beverages, sweets and snacks, to de facto locally established meat and vegetarian food vendors. Each stall, for example, may serve an average of approximately 100 customers per day, meaning that some 25,000 people are relying on these vendors in Matariya alone.

The income of vendors ranges, on average, between LE 240 and LE 480 per month, and can be higher than wages in the formal sector. But, in contrast to the work of government and public sector employees, a vendors’ income can fluctuate; income from vending is insecure. And in case of sickness or other individual crisis, accidents, for example, nobody substitutes income losses; further, vendors must also cope with fines and damages due to harassments by the authorities. Vendors, therefore, seek out ways to reduce such economic risks in their daily “search for security”: a small group of them may combine different economic activities; they work, for example, in the morning for a low but stable amount of money as public employees, and work part time in the afternoon in the food business. Others cope with the lack of income security by trying to keep expenditures for commodities and infrastructure low. They may chose a specific career as a vendor offering candy cotton or tea. A larger group of the street food vendors apply the strategy of recruiting mostly female labor power from within the family, which is mainly unpaid. Wage laborers are subsequently only found in the meat sector, where high product turnovers are reached.

In addition to providing ready-made foodstuffs to the community street food vending offers urgently needed employment for low-income groups. Almost three quarter of the vendors are heads of household who are supporting an average of six or seven dependents. And finally, in absence of sufficient social security systems, vending is an important opportunity to provide jobs and income, especially for more vulnerable groups, such as female-headed households. These findings clearly contrast with the picture which has been drawn by some scholars stressing that street food vendors live in uncertain housing conditions, that they are unproductive elements in the community, and are representing “a big loss in the national economy” (see EL-DIN 1991).