Table 2.

Steps and phases in an analytical procedure determining a bacterial pathogen which can cause foodborne infections (adapted from [109]). These steps involve prevalently those for direct antigen analyses.

Step/Phase	Note
To investigate	Water: environment, processing water, drinking water (for animals or to prepare a meal). Environment: farm (including wild animals and insects in its surroundings), processing plant, abattoir, butcher, greengrocer, kitchen, etc. Pre-products: carcass, ingredients (herbs), etc. Products: fruit, meat, sliced vegetables, ready-to-eat, salads, etc.
Sampling	Sample quality and size should reflect what is investigated (food, flock, farm, herd, retailer, kitchen, etc.)
Transport	Identifiable at all times, properly cooled, and with no risk of cross-contamination
Sample treatment	Acclimatization Homogenize if required (as a matter of fact, homogenization is a specialism in itself)
Pre-enrichment	Resuscitate and proliferate bacteria to determine even low numbers
Selective enrichment	Proliferate the aimed pathogen exclusively
Culture evaluation	Gauge selective culture by assessing color, smell, turbidity and microscopical investigation, Gram staining, etc.
Analysis	Traditional plating, agglutination, enzymic assays, LFD, (IMS) ELISA, apta-/geno-/immune-/phagosensors, LoaC, LoaD, nucleic acid sequence assays
Verification	Confirmation and identification