Biosensing Technologies for Ensuring the Safety of Meat Products: A Critical Review

Ensuring food safety and quality is critical for public health, regulatory compliance, and consumer confidence. Biosensors represent a new generation of affordable analytical tools that couple a biological recognition component with a signal-generating transducer, enabling rapid, quantitative detection of target biomolecules with high selectivity. Following the general classification of biosensor types, there are three principal types: electrochemical, optical, and piezoelectric biosensors. The latter have demonstrated the capacity to identify a broad spectrum of hazards, including major foodborne pathogens, chemical contaminants, and antimicrobial resistance determinants. Hence, biosensors have emerged as promising alternatives, offering rapid, sensitive, and cost-effective real-time solutions for meat quality. Unlike previous reviews that focus on single sensor types or isolated hazards, this work provides a holistic context that extends the scientific fundamentals of biosensor mechanisms and their deployment for detecting key contaminants. Significantly, it extends beyond technical performance to address commercialization pathways, consumer acceptance, regulatory frameworks, and ethical considerations that outline practical adoption. By coupling these multidisciplinary insights with a progressive analysis of emerging challenges and future perspectives, this review uniquely positions itself as a comprehensive roadmap for advancing biosensing technologies in meat safety.