Throughout the western world there is an increasing public demand for safer foods of higher quality. Microorganisms play a highly significant role in both the theoretical and practical aspects of food and beverage collection, processing, retailing and distribution. Current methods for detecting and identifying foodborne organisms have proved inadequate in speed, precision and accuracy, and their improvement has been a concern for many years to producers, manufacturers and retailers, as well as regulatory and enforcement bodies. This book contains contributions from worldwide experts on recent technical advances in this field, and although primarily of interest to those concerned with foods, it should also be relevant for those concerned with the detection of microbes in other environments