Enhanced growth of salmonellas in Rappaport's medium as modified by Vassiliadis et al. (1976) after pre-enrichment in buffered peptone water during the first 6 h was obtained by replacement of tryptone by soya peptone. The competing bacteria, i.e. those which grow on brilliant green agar and which may interfere with the isolation of salmonellas when Rappaport's medium (R10) incubated at 43 degrees C is used for enrichment were inhibited or reduced in numbers when the normal amount of 5 g soya peptone/litre was used. When the amount was increased to 10 g/l, growth occurred, mainly of Enterobacter and Klebsiella species. The isolation of salmonellas was found to be largely dependent on the number and the ratio of their competitors. Every measure taken to reduce the number of competitive bacteria increases the possibility of isolating salmonellas. This explains the effect of improved selectivity of Rappaport's medium when small inocula are used. Rapid onset of growth of salmonellas by employing soya peptone introduces the possibility of using shorter incubation times 48 h.