## 1 Introduction  
_Salmonella_ is a highly relevant food-borne pathogen of large economic significance for both animals and humans. _Salmonella_ outbreaks caused 94,530 human cases in the EU only in 2016, with the highest burden relating to the number of hospitalizations (1766) and deaths (10) [1]. _S._ enteritidis, in particular, accounted for 59% of all _Salmonella_ infection cases originating in the EU. The principal reservoirs are the intestines of a wide variety of animals, resulting in the contamination of different foodstuffs, both of animal and plant origin [2; 3]. Indeed, _Salmonella_ is associated mainly with raw food, subject to faecal contamination, including poultry, raw meat, seafood, egg, and dairy products [4]. In addition, it was also found to be the most common bacterial pathogen responsible for produce outbreaks [5]. Therefore, in EU countries, surveillance of _Salmonella_ infections in humans is compulsory, and also for food-producing animals and food thereof. In order to guarantee food security, the availability of reliable methods to identify this pathogenic bacterium is becoming increasingly relevant to the food industry, as well as for official controls. The traditional cultural method [6] requires more than five days to determine a positive result, besides being laborious and time-consuming. For this reason, to use the traditional cultural method is not very suitable for high-throughput screening of large numbers of food samples for the presence of _Salmonella_ cells [7; 8]. Less laborious and faster alternative methods for pathogen detection in foods have been developed [8; 9; 10; 11; 12]. Among them, the method that combines loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) with bioluminescence detection stands out as a reliable, faster, and simpler approach than conventional culture methods. LAMP was developed by [PERSON] et al. in 2000 [9]. It is a method that amplifies DNA with high specificity, efficiency, and rapidity, utilizing a DNA polymerase enzyme with high strand displacement activity and two pairs of primers recognizing six independent sequences of a target gene under isothermal conditions [12]. Subsequently this method has been implemented by [PERSON] et al. in 2002, incorporating forward loop primers that accelerate the LAMP reaction and reducing costs as a consequence [13]. Due to its high sensitivity and low cost, LAMP has been applied for pathogen detection screening of large numbers of food samples, and has successfully been used to detect many pathogens, including _Salmonella_ spp. [14]. In recent years, some kits based on LAMP have been commercialised and their performance has been positively evaluated [8; 12]. Hence alternative methods are catching on, as molecular methods are more rapid and have an interesting potential to be used for screening, revealing a preliminary result, even if ISO 6579-1:2017 [6] still remains necessary to isolate the microorganisms for further characterization. ISO 16140-2:2016 [15] defines the procedures for validation of alternative microbiological methods against the cultural method, measuring the concordance of the results for both methods. A _Salmonella_ LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification) assay was validated in this study as a novel specific and cost-effective nucleic acid amplification method for bacterial detection and identification. This innovative method is characterised by six primers that specifically recognise eight different regions on the target gene [9]. In comparison to PCR and Real-Time PCR, LAMP has many advantages: reaction simplicity, as it can be performed by semi-skilled staff, even in a heating block without any thermal cycler; and detection sensitivity, displaying a 10-100-fold higher sensitivity than PCR [16]. In addition, LAMP shows a higher amplification efficiency and the enzyme commonly involved, Bst DNA polymerase, has shown not to be inhibited by the presence of anticoagulants, NaCl, hemin, and other PCR-interfering substances [17].