Abstract:The traditional cell culture method is the'gold standard'for the detection of living pathogenic bacteria.However，the process can often be complicated and time-consuming.This paper focused on two types of non-cell culture detection methods for viable foodborne pathogens：those based on nucleic acids[quantitative polymerase chain reaction（qPCR）and messenger PCR assay]and phages（phage amplification in combination with PCR/qPCR amplification，immunoassay，enzymatic determination，and electrochemical phage biosensor methods）.Their applications in the detection of viable foodborne pathogens and the future prospects for development were discussed.Compared with the traditional method，detection speed，sensitivity，and specificity were found to be crucial advantages，especially for the phage-based approach.