Among the unsung heroes of Port-au-Prince during its long months of political crisis were the bakers, food vendors, and small restaurant operators who kept their businesses running through lockdowns, fuel shortages, and insecurity because they knew that their communities depended on them. In neighborhoods where access to food markets was disrupted, a local bakery or street food vendor could be the difference between a family eating or going hungry.
Bakers described arriving at their shops before dawn to start production before protest activity typically began, building up inventory that could be sold through the day even if conditions deteriorated. They often operated on thin margins even in good times; the rising cost of flour, shortening, and fuel in 2019 had squeezed those margins nearly to nothing. Some had taken on debt to keep operating, betting on a return to normalcy that was slow in coming.
Street food vendors — who sell everything from fritay (fried food) to soup joumou to fresh juice from carts and makeshift stalls throughout the city — demonstrated similar resilience. Their ability to relocate quickly to wherever customers could be found, to shift their hours around the rhythms of protest and calm, and to adapt their product offerings to what was available and affordable made them the most flexible link in the urban food supply chain.
Food economists pointed to the informal food sector’s performance during the crisis as evidence of both remarkable resilience and profound vulnerability. These vendors kept the city fed, but they had no safety net, no insurance, and no credit lines to fall back on when things got bad.