The lactose pre-enrichment technique of North (8) modified only in the amount of original specimen (60 g as compared with 34 g) and of diluent (540 ml as compared with 406 ml) has been successfully employed to isolate and enumerate salmonellae in foods. Quantitative studies using laboratory-prepared chicken pie filling indicate that excellent recovery in the range of four to hundreds of thousands of salmonellae per 100 g of food can be obtained. The technique is excessively cumbersome for the quantification of large numbers (hundreds per g) of salmonellae, but excellently adapted to the detection and quantification of smaller concentrations. The specificity of the method was maintained in the presence of natural food flora and of additions of relatively large numbers of organisms frequently associated with food. None of the natural food constituents used in the study affected the sensitivity or specificity of the method.