This review describes the different applications of real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) quantification for monitoring, evaluating, and predicting the growth behavior of foodborne pathogenic bacteria in food materials. Real-time PCR has been successfully used to quantify the cell numbers of target pathogenic bacteria from food materials containing high levels of naturally occurring microbial flora and to monitor their growth under a variety of conditions over time. Real-time PCR has higher accuracy than conventional plate count method, which tends to underestimate bacterial viable cell numbers, particularly after high-stress treatments. Owing to its high accuracy, speed, and throughput, real-time PCR is highly recommended as an alternative tool for obtaining microbial growth data for model construction in predictive microbiology. Furthermore, this technique is particularly useful for evaluating levels of bacterial injury following stress exposure as well as other available estimation methods. Real-time PCR quantification has considerable potential for a wide range of applications on a large scale to ensure microbial safety from farm to table, such as supporting the development of the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system.