A study was conducted to determine the efficacy of detecting low contamination levels of Salmonella in peanut butter using TRANSIA PLATE Salmonella Gold (TPSG). This study was conducted under the AOAC Emergency Response Validation program. A set of samples was each analyzed by the TPSG method and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Bacteriological Analytical Manual reference method. Among the 45 total samples and controls, 26 were positive by the TPSG and 24 were positive by the reference method. Statistical analyses of these unpaired samples indicated that for all levels analyzed, the difference between the TPSG and reference method results were not statistically different at the 5% level.