Qualitative tests are used to monitor antimicrobial resistance in bacteria of animal origin in the Netherlands. Quantitative information on trends in resistance is thus not obtained. Moreover, in general a limited panel of antibiotics is tested. The present study describes resistance in zoonotic food-borne pathogens Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Escherichia coli O157 isolated from human clinical cases and from faeces of healthy food animals in 1998 and 1999, as determined with quantitative susceptibility tests. The resistance of the indicator organisms E. coli and Enterococcus faecium isolated from faecal samples of broilers and pigs randomly sampled at slaughterhouses was also determined. For this end, faecal samples from veal calves were sampled in 1996 and 1997 at the three main Dutch veal calf slaughterhouses. In 1998 only a limited number of faecal samples of veal calves were taken at farms. For E. coli and Salmonella the following antibiotics were tested: amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, piperacillin, cefotaxime, ceftazidime, imipenem, gentamicin, doxycycline, trimethoprim, trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole, ciprofloxacin, chloramphenicol, florfenicol, carbadox, and flumequine. For E. faecium the following antibiotics were tested: amoxicillin, amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, chloramphenicol, doxycycline, erythromycin, vancomycin, teicoplanin, streptomycin ('high level' > 2000 mg/ml), gentamicin ('high level' > 500 mg/ml), ciprofloxacin, bacitracin, flavofosfolipol, salinomycin, quinupristin-dalfopristin, virginiamycin, tilmicosin, avilamycin, and everninomycin. For Campylobacter the following antibiotics were tested: erythromycin, doxycycline, gentamicin, carbadox, flavofosfolipol, ciprofloxacin, trimethoprim/sulphamethoxazole, amoxicillin, and metronidazole.