In food and feedstuffs, sample is added to selective enrichment brothse.g. Selenite Cystine, Tetrathionate or Rappaport-Vassiliadis broth, with the objective of restricting the growth of other organisms yet allowing enhanced recovery of Salmonella spp. Typically incubation is at 37°C or 42-43°C for 24 hours dependant upon the food matrix and likely bacterial loading.

Sublethally stressed or injured cells, such as may occur in dried food products may require a resusitation stage in buffered peptone water before being subcultured into the rigourous environment of selective media.

Traditionally, selective agars e.g. bismuth sulfite agar [BS]; xylose lysine desoxycholate [XLD] agar, and Hektoen enteric [HE] agar are inoculated from these enrichments and incubated for a further 24 hours at 35°C or 37°C. The modern chromogenic agars now available make suspect colonies more distinct.

As with many microbiological tests for common pathogens there is often a requirement to obtain rapid results to allow positive release of raw materials or finished product; or at least an early recall before the finished product has moved too far down the distribution network. Consequently a number of alternative, sometimes complementary techniques have been developed to address this issue:

- Combining enrichment with presumptive identification
- Cell separation by immuno magnetic capture.
- Replacement of plating out by rapid methods e.g. as immunoassay in various formats or molecular methods such as PCR can eliminate the need for further identification in the event of a positive and can also provide quantitative information.

Clinical samples are usually sub-cultured directly to selective agars [e.g. CLED or DCA] followed by identification.

Quality control organisms are available to ensure that method performance is within standard criteria.

Following isolation on selective media, identification can be carried out using agglutination, biochemical or molecular techniques.

Latex agglutination allows rapid elimination of negative samples, positives can then be checked out with more targeted tests.

Biochemical profiles identify organisms phenotypically and are widely used.

Molecular methods using PCR or nucleic acid techniques are routinely used as confirmatory tests.

Salmonella isolates are most commonly classified according to serology using the Kauffman-White classification scheme. Clinical samples are usually referred to specialist laboratories for serotyping, phage typing and antibiotic resistance testing.

Due to the emergence and spread of Salmonella resistant to multiple antibiotics all isolates of Salmonella should be subjected to an antimicrobial susceptibility test. This helps with both patient management and also in generating the surveillance data.

The economic cost of Salmonella infections in the United States is estimated at US$3 billion. Very few countries report costs associated with these infections.

Denmark has taken active steps to not only monitor but also control Salmonella. A study shows that in 2001 a control program costing US $14 million saved Denmark US $25 million by controlling Salmonella. These costs were paid almost exclusively by the industry.

There are close to 2,500 serovars of Salmonella and the correct nomenclature is important in regard to epidemiology as well as communication between researchers. An example is Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serotype Typhimurium, this may be shortened to Salmonella typhimurium.