206 samples of commercially available infant food and their ingredients were examined for the content of B. cereus and coagulase-positive staphylococci as well as for the presence of salmonellae. B. cereus could be isolated from 64 samples with numbers between 3 and 460/g (only 2 samples greater than 100/g). Two samples contained coagulase-positive staphylococci (4/g each), and no sample salmonellae. Growth of B. cereus in reconstituted samples with counts of less than or equal to 100/g incubated at 20 and 25 degrees C, reached counts of 10(3)-10(4)/g after 6-9 h and 3-6 h, respectively. With regard to productivity and selectivity no differences between the media used (mannitol-egg yolk-phenolred-polymyxin-agar according to Mossel, Koopman and Jongerius, and polymyxin-pyruvate-egg yolk-mannitol-bromthymol blue-agar according to Holbrook and Anderson) could be observed