There is a widely held belief that the rate of nonconfirmable presumptives (NCPs) in food pathogen diagnostics has increased significantly in recent years. This increase has been most closely associated with real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. However, pathogen testing platforms based on other technologies (e.g., enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay/enzyme-linked fluorescent assay) have not been immune to this belief. The information necessary to determine the truth resides in the databases of third-party laboratories. However, the sheer volume of data and the quirks of the laboratory information management systems in which they reside have prevented assembly of a meaningful set of numbers that could answer the question definitively. Nevertheless, the belief is real, and the limited data that have been analyzed suggest that rates of NCPs are indeed on the rise. The question is, why? In the discussion that follows, I will attempt to answer that question (or show how it might be answered) in several different ways. The hope is that this approach will also help clarify why the answer is so important, and how it affects almost everyone involved in food production and/or food safety up to and including the consumer.