The early screening and rapid detection of foodborne pathogens is critical to food safety and public health. However, the traditional detection method is cumbersome, time-consuming and laborious, and cannot meet the requirement of rapid detection. CRISPR/Cas, composed of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) and CRISPR-associated protein (Cas), is an immune system widely present in bacteria and archaea, which provides a novel pathway for low-cost, rapid, specific and sensitive detection of foodborne pathogens due to its efficient and specific sequence recognition and cleavage activity. This review article introduces the principle, mechanism and development of the CRISPR/Cas system, and summarizes the latest progresses in the rapid detection of foodborne pathogens based on the CRISPR/Cas system combined with different result reporting methods in recent years. Its advantages, limitations and future development prospects are also discussed.