Background:

Preservatives of synthetic origin, such as nitrates and nitrites, used in the food industry for the preservation of meat matrices, have reported long-term unfavorable effects on the health of recurrent consumers.

Objective:

To know the physicochemical and antimicrobial characteristics of propolis as a potential biopreservative in high consumption meat matrices.

Materials and Methods:

A bibliographic review of literature was developed according to the problem question posed by the research group, carrying out a search in the Scopus, NCBI, SciELO, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar databases of review articles, scientific articles, books and works degree.

Results:

Propolis is a natural compound with a wide variety of useful elements for the conservation of meat matrices, due to its antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.

Conclusions:

Propolis has useful antimicrobial and antioxidant properties in the field of the food industry, being considered one of the most viable alternatives for the preservation of meat products and the reduction of the use of synthetic preservatives in meat production. However, it is essential to develop more research to evaluate the behavior of the active compounds of propolis in the various meat matrices.

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