Many people believe that VBNC pathogens are simply in a stage preceding cell death or adaptation to stress (Sachidanandham and Gin, 2009), which cannot induce disease despite the retention of virulent properties. VBNC pathogens are generally considered to be unable to initiate disease, but the virulence of VBNC pathogens can be recovered or maintained after resuscitation, leading to disease/infection (Du et al., 2007b; Nicolò and Guglielmino, 2012). For example, the VBNC cells of Listeria monocytogenes resuscitated by incubation with embryonated egg regained virulence identical to that of culturable cells (Cappelier et al., 2007). More seriously, large amounts of evidence have shown that VBNC pathogens may be involved in foodborne outbreaks. For example, a foodborne outbreak caused by salted salmon roe contaminated with Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157 was reported in Japan. Makino et al. (2000) performed numerous experiments and proposed that E. coli O157 might enter the VBNC state in salted salmon roe. In another outbreak in Japan, Asakura et al. (2002) suggested that Salmonella Oranienburg might become VBNC cells in response to NaCl stress in the outbreak caused by dried processed squids, and this hypothesis was confirmed by resuscitation experiments. Although there is no evidence to confirm that these outbreaks were directly caused by VBNC pathogens, the above studies adequately demonstrate that the potential presence of VBNC pathogens can pose a serious risk to food safety and public health. Foodborne pathogenic bacteria that use food as a carrier are some of the most important human pathogens, causing foodborne disease in human beings (Zhao et al., 2014, 2016). The foodborne pathogens may enter the VBNC state during food processing techniques, such as high temperature, high pressure, disinfectant, preservation, and low temperature storage, and they have become a potential risk for food safety. The VBNC cells of foodborne pathogenic bacteria are easily missed using the conventional plate counting technique and can be recovered with pathogenicity under certain conditions, resulting in a serious threat to human health. Therefore, research investigating VBNC foodborne pathogens is very important, and the establishment of a rapid and effective detection method for bacteria in the VBNC state has become a key to resolving the current crisis, as well as guaranteeing food safety and human health. To provide references for the safety control of foodborne pathogens, the biological characteristics, induction and resuscitation factors, detection methods and formation mechanism of VBNC foodborne pathogens are reviewed in this article.