A new systematic review in Food Policy, from a team spanning the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Cornell University, GAIN, and collaborating institutions
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.
And yet, as a new systematic scoping review in Food Policy shows, research on this workforce is scattered, inconsistently defined, and full of gaps that matter for policy.
The systematic scoping review, by a team spanning the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Cornell University, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Purdue University, Kula Vyema Centre of Food Economics, and collaborators across several other institutions, screened 23,250 records and analyzed 327 studies across 64 countries published since 2000. The team asked three questions:
A few things stood out:
First, the field can't agree on what “informal” even means. Fewer than a quarter of the studies reviewed clearly specified a definition, and among those that did, definitions varied wildly, some based on location, some on licensing, some on whether a vendor has a physical stall. These have big impact on local policies: a location-based definition leads to place-based policy, an infrastructure-based one leads to market upgrades, and a licensing-based one leads to formalization drives that have mostly failed in practice, because the costs of registration and compliance are rarely designed around how informal work actually functions.
Second, gender runs through everything. Women make up the majority of informal food vendors, and the review found gender-specific patterns in who sells what, where, and under what constraints, from spatial segregation in fish markets to outright exclusion from public space and credit. In Dhaka, researchers documented vendors using “quiet encroachment” tactics: male vendors would duck under tea tables when police approached while their wives took over, because officers were reluctant to arrest women. It's a small, telling example of how informal actors navigate, and are shaped by, the sociopolitical realities around them.
Third, informal food environments run on relationships, not just transactions. Researchers call this “social infrastructure”: the informal ties that stabilize supply chains, share risk, and confer legitimacy on work that has none on paper.
Finally, and most concretely for policymakers: among the 214 studies that offered policy recommendations across more than 40 countries, the clearest and most consistent message was to move beyond the formal/informal binary altogether. Basic infrastructure (water, electricity, designated vending zones, cold storage) was the single most common recommendation. Gender-responsive financial inclusion and social protections for informal workers followed. Nearly every strand of this literature converges on the same conclusion: informality sits on a continuum, not in a binary, and policy that ignores that will keep missing the people who feed a large share of the world's poor and urban populations.
Ramya Ambikapathi (nutrition epidemiologist): "What particularly stood out to me is how contested informal entities/agents are, and as a result, the definitions are as well. You have informal markets that are sites of rich biodiversity and traditional foods, but also spaces where you can find illegal bushmeat; informal actors are the main source of vegetables in some contexts, while other informal actors bring the convenience of ultra-processed foods to your doorstep. And then there is the actual demand because current formal food systems leave out most of the population in LMICs, and the livelihood opportunities these spaces present to so many, so it's no wonder the definitions are so contested. As an epidemiologist, you start with a definition. We don’t ask vendors whether they have access to social programs, etc comparing to the ILO definition. So much of what we eat is shaped by vendors; a closer look into their livelihoods, their motivations, their supply, their diets, and wellbeing is an important gap.”
Ramya Ambikapathi, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT: r.ambikapathi@cgiar.org
Stella Nordhagen (agricultural economist): "Throughout this research process, it was really interesting to see the diversity of ways that informality was defined and conceptualized, both in the literature and among the diverse coauthors on the paper. Seeing the many different ways in which informal actors contribute to and interact with food environments really emphasized to me not only their importance, and the importance of understanding their roles better, but also just how complex informality is as a research topic."
Stella Nordhagen, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition: Snordhagen@gainhealth.org
Jane Battersby (human geographer): "The rapid increase in the number of publications focused on informality in food environments is encouraging, given the continued importance of this sector for food and nutrition security and livelihoods. As the evidence base on this sector grows, I hope that we will see an associated rise in policies and governance supporting and enhancing the sector."
Jane Battersby, University of Cape Town: jane.battersby@uct.ac.za
Elizabeth Fox (nutritionist): "The narrative around informality often fails to recognize informal vendors and retailers as legitimate actors, even though they represent a substantial share of food system participants in low-income and middle-income countries. Informal food vendors, including street vendors, play a critical role in supporting diets and nutrition around the world (both directly and indirectly), particularly for children and women globally. Yet their contributions are frequently overlooked and undervalued. One major contribution of this work, in my view, is that it systematically documents the wide range of ways informality is defined. While the ILO definition is widely used, our findings show that it captures only a limited set of dimensions. Other aspects, such as infrastructure, types of products sold, spatial characteristics, and visibility, are highly relevant to how informal food systems operate in practice. As an ethnographic researcher, attending to this nuance is essential. A multidimensional understanding of informality allows us to better capture the lived realities of those working in the informal sector and to humanize their experiences. Without this, we risk reducing complex social and economic practices to overly narrow categories that obscure the people behind them. Multidimensional frameworks for informality would allow for more actionable, context-sensitive pathways to support informal actors and the food systems they sustain."
Elizabeth Fox, Cornell University: elf23@cornell.edu
Mark Lundy (Market and community development specialist): "The finding I keep coming back to is the definitional one. Fewer than a quarter of the studies say what they mean by “informal.” Some define it by location, some by whether there is a physical stall, some by licensing. That choice has implications. A location-based definition produces place-based policy. An infrastructure definition produces market upgrades. A licensing definition produces formalization drives. The use of any of these definitions induces certain policy conclusions before the data comes in. Informal vendors supply fruits, vegetables and animal-source foods alongside ultra-processed products, so regulation aimed at one side lands on the other. And very little research examines how informal actors trade with formal value chains, even though the two meet daily in the same markets. We have spent years building tools for inclusive business models in formal chains, including the gender-responsive versions of that work. Almost none of that thinking has been tested with the vendors who move most of the food people actually eat. The surprise is the gap inside the gender finding. Bribery, harassment, and personal safety are barely studied. Women are well documented as subjects of policy, much less as agents in it. Given policies often unfavorable to informal vendors, this seems like a critical gap."
Mark Lundy, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT: m.lundy@cgiar.org
Avery Sirwatka (currently a law student): "A key takeaway for me is that a sizable share of studies concluded that effective regulation of informal food environments requires moving beyond the formal-informal binary. Formalization efforts have largely failed, in part because the costs of registration, licensing, permitting, and food safety compliance are rarely designed with local informal work conditions in mind, pointing to this binary as a source of policy failure. The literature instead suggests that alternatives such as collaborative governance models and the legal recognition of vendors’ economic roles offer more nuanced policy approaches that may best meet both vendor and social needs."
Avery Sirwatka, Cornell University: avery.sirwatka@gmail.com
Jenny Wiegel (agri-food system sociologist): "A key finding for me from this review is that, despite the critical role of what have been termed informal food environment actors in LMICs, there remains considerable ambiguity about what constitutes ‘informal.’ This ambiguity in classification limits the ability to compare across contexts or to generalize from the available studies to form or test larger theories about informality and how it affects key nutrition, social, and livelihood outcomes. Moreover, the unclear classification of informality muddies policy debates."
Jenny Wiegel, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT: j.wiegel@cgiar.org
Matt Kibbee (library scientist): "When the topic is as broad and wide-ranging as informality in food systems, it can present quite a challenge! We therefore conducted a massive sweep of the global literature, including traditional academic studies as well as “grey” literature, or research published outside of traditional academic channels. By reviewing tens of thousands of bibliographic records, we can provide an unbiased, comprehensive picture of the information landscape to help inform the decisions of policymakers and direct the flow of future research."
Matt Kibbee, Cornell University: mk282@cornell.edu
Swetha Manohar (public health nutritionist): "One key finding for me is that gender is a critical but not the only axis of inequality among informal food environment vendors. Women dominate this workforce and face harassment and exclusion from public space and credit, but location compounds this: vendors cluster in poor communities, such as informal settlements and areas near low-wage workplaces. Inequality here is about where selling happens as much as who sells. Migration status also shape women's paths into vending, though understudied, and migration will likely grow more urgent as climate pressures reshape movement. Underlying all of this is a striking evidence gap around vendors' own health and nutritional well-being. Addressing it requires first resolving how informal food vendors (who are critical to facilitating access to healthy diets) are defined, since without a clear definition the population at risk cannot be identified, measured, or compared across studies”.
Swetha Manohar, International Food Policy Research Institute: smanoha2@jhu.edu
Nilupa Gunaratna (public health nutritionist and statistician): “Food vendors should be recognized as actors within food systems, not merely outlets from which we purchase food. They shape the availability, accessibility, and quality of food, and efforts to transform food systems must also consider how these actors can sustainably build livelihoods and move out of poverty. Food vending is a major source of livelihood and income throughout the world, especially for young people and women seeking “decent work”, as described by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 8. Informality shapes who sells food, what is sold, and where, when, why, and how it is sold. Importantly, informality exists along a continuum rather than as a binary distinction. This matters not only for policy, but also for how we research and monitor food systems. Time matters as well. Most research has been cross-sectional, with data collected at only one point in time. However, informal work can be precarious, and vendors constantly adapt to challenges while operating without safety nets. These rapid changes are missed in cross-sectional research. Space matters too. Urbanization is occurring not only in capital and other large cities, but also in smaller cities and in peri-urban and rural areas. We need to understand what is happening beyond major urban centers. As we develop policies and interventions to increase access to healthier, more nutritious, and safer food, informality must be a central consideration so that these efforts do not undermine informal food vendors’ livelihoods.”
Nilupa Gunaratna, Purdue University: gunaratna@purdue.edu
Rachel Bezner Kerr (sociologist): “Despite the important role that informal food environments play in provisioning food, including diverse food in urban and peri-urban settings, and supporting livelihoods in low- and middle-income countries, there is relatively limited research on them. The link between informal food vendors and their health, diets, and nutrition outcomes is understudied, in stark contrast to numerous studies examining the relationship between farm production on smallholder farms and farm households’ health, diets, and nutritional outcomes. I was struck by the workplace socio-political dynamics left under-explored in the research, including childcare, migration and the use of bribes. Our study underlines the need for further examination of this important sector in relation to food environments, health and nutrition in the Global South.”
Rachel Bezner Kerr, Cornell University: rnb5@cornell.edu
Simon Kimenju (agricultural economist): “Among the many findings, this work shows that in addition to facilitating access to nutrient-dense foods, informal food vendors are also outlets of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in rural and urban areas. Research on UPFs needs to increasingly include informal food environments in addition to formal markets. It will definitely be more difficult for UPFs policy in the informal economy, but increased recognition and inclusion of informal vendors by governments will eventually open ways for innovative approaches.”
Simon Kimenju, Kula Vyema Centre of Food Economics: skimenju@kulavyema.org
The paper, “Informality in Food Environments: A Systematic Review of Nutrition, Livelihood, and Sociopolitical Outcomes and Implications for Food Policy,” is now in press at Food Policy.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2026.103197
Food Policy
Informality in food environments: a systematic review of nutrition, livelihood, and sociopolitical outcomes and implications for food policy
22-Sep-2026