The contamination of food with organisms, such asSalmonella, Listeria, andEscherichia coli, continues to be an area of concern for consumers and food producers. Historically, the identification of such organisms has been done using conventional culture methods and biochemical techniques. These methods, although still considered by most to be the “gold standard” for microbial identification, can often be time consuming and laborious to perform. In addition, these methods can also be complicated by the heterogeneous nature of food microflora and the subjective nature of many microbiological and biochemical techniques.
