The concept of VBNC has attracted great attention in the fields of microbiology, because it has upset the traditional concept of microorganismal growth. Unlike normal cells, VBNC cells cannot be grown in conventional culture medium, and thus, conventional methods of detection cannot be used to detect bacterial pathogens in the VBNC state. Thus, challenges are encountered in the detection of pathogens. To date, researchers have identified 85 species of bacteria that can enter the VBNC state, including 18 non-pathogenic species and 67 pathogenic species. Some foodborne pathogens retain virulence after entering the VBNC state, which may be due to their rapid resuscitation into culturable cells under certain conditions (Li et al., 2014).