Five hundred naturally contaminated samples were examined in a trial where SMID agar was compared with either Brilliant Green agar, Rambach agar or Xylose, Lysine, Desoxycholate agar. There were no significant differences in sensitivity but SMID agar detected slightly more salmonella isolates than BGA agar following RVS enrichment and slightly less following Selenite enrichment. There was, however, a marked reduction in the level of false‐positives when SMID agar was use