In the past, detection of STEC was mainly based on the somatic, O polysaccharide antigen, and selecting the pathogens of concern was based on epidemiological studies . However, after the biggest STEC outbreak reported in Germany in 2011, it was concluded that the pathogenicity assessment should be focused on molecular detection and all isolates containing any of the Shiga toxin coding gene (stx) may be able to cause severe infection in humans (EFSA Panel on . This conclusion highlighted the need for quick and reliable methods for nucleic acid-based STEC detection in the agri-food chain. Bacterial detection has advanced significantly in recent years and considerable efforts have been focused on the development of genetic-based techniques, i.e., for methods based on the detection of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). A method which includes a nucleic acid amplification, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), is the method of choice for STEC . PCR however requires expensive reagents and equipment; highly trained personnel and sample contamination could lead to the amplification of the non-target sequence leading to false-positive results. For these reasons, it is not feasible to apply such an approach to point-of-care (POC) detection on farms or in the food industry .