Since Listeria monocytogenes has a high case-fatality rate, substantial research has been devoted to estimate its growth rate under different conditions of temperature, pH and water activity (a w). In this study, published findings on L. monocytogenes growth in broth were extracted and unified by constructing meta-regression models based on cardinal models for (i) temperature (CM[T]), (ii) temperature and pH (CM[T][pH]), and (iii) temperature, pH and a w (CM[T][pH][a w ]). After assessing all the sources retrieved between 1988 until 2017, fortynine primary studies were considered appropriate for inclusion. Apart from the modelling variables, study characteristics such as: type of broth (BHI, TSB, TPB), reading method (colony-forming-units, CFU; or binarydilution optical density methods, OD), inoculum concentration and strain serotype, were also extracted. Metaregressions based on CM[T] and CM[T][pH] were fitted on subsets of the 2009 growth rate measures and revealed that type of broth and reading method significantly modulated the cardinal parameter estimates. In the most parsimonious CM[T][pH][a w ] meta-regression model, whereby the variability due to type of broth was extracted in a nested random-effects structure, the optimum growth rate μ opt of L. monocytogenes was found to be lower when measured as CFU (0.947 log CFU/h; SE = 0.094 log CFU/h) than when measured as OD (1.289 log CFU/h; SE = 0.092 log CFU/h). Such a model produced the following cardinal estimates: T min =-1.273°C (SE = 0.179°C), T opt = 37.26°C (SE = 0.688°C), T max = 45.12°C (SE = 0.013°C), pH min = 4.303 (SE = 0.014), pH opt = 7.085 (SE = 0.080), pH max = 9.483 (SE = 0.080), a w min = 0.894 (SE = 0.002) and a w opt = 0.995 (SE = 0.001). Integrating the outcomes from numerous L. monocytogenes growth experiments, this meta-analysis has estimated pooled cardinal parameters that can be used as reference values in quantitative risk assessment studies. the most serious foodborne illnesses under EU surveillance (EFSA & ECDC, 2019). Moreover, among the cases with information on hospitalisation status, 97% were hospitalised (EFSA & ECDC, 2019). Occurrence data in ready-to-eat (RTE) food samples has revealed that, in the EU, in 2017, L. monocytogenes occurrence was highest in fish and fishery products (6%), RTE salads (4.2%), RTE meat and meat products (1.8%), soft and semi-soft cheeses (0.9%), fruits and vegetables (0.6%) and hard cheeses (0.1%) (EFSA & ECDC, 2018), while in 2018, the occurrence of L. monocytogenes ranged from 0.09% for "hard cheeses made from pasteurised milk" up to 3.1% for RTE bovine meat (EFSA & ECDC, 2019). Even though general, healthy population can be susceptible to listeriosis infection, the main groups of risk are people over 65 years-old, women aged 25-44 and children below 1 year of age (believed to be mainly pregnancy-related), and immunocompromised patients or patients with a higher number of severe comorbidities (EFSA BIOHAZ Panel, 2018). Since one of the main goals and responsibilities of the food industry