Foodborne pathogens cause millions of infections every year and are responsible for considerable economic
losses worldwide. The current gold standard for the detection of bacterial pathogens in food is still
the conventional cultivation following standardized and generally accepted protocols. However, these
methods are time-consuming and do not provide fast information about food contaminations and thus
are limited in their ability to protect consumers in time from potential microbial hazards. Fluorescence in
situ hybridization (FISH) represents a rapid and highly specific technique for whole-cell detection. This
review aims to summarize the current data on FISH-testing for the detection of pathogenic bacteria in
different food matrices and to evaluate its suitability for the implementation in routine testing. In this
context, the use of FISH in different matrices and their pretreatment will be presented, the sensitivity and
specificity of FISH tests will be considered and the need for automation shall be discussed as well as the
use of technological improvements to overcome current hurdles for a broad application in monitoring
food safety. In addition, the overall economical feasibility will be assessed in a rough calculation of costs,
and strengths and weaknesses of FISH are considered in comparison with traditional and wellestablished
detection methods.