From Production to Application: Postbiotics in Meat, Meat Products, Other Food Matrices, and Bioactive Packaging.

Postbiotics represent a promising strategy for reconciling increasing consumer demand for clean-label foods with the need to maintain high microbiological safety standards. The present review analyzed the applications of postbiotics in meat products, other food matrices and bioactive packaging, with particular emphasis on their production methods, compositional analysis and antimicrobial properties. Available evidence indicates that postbiotics offer important technological advantages over live probiotics, including enhanced stability during processing and storage and the absence of viable cells, which facilitates their integration into established food quality and safety control systems. The reviewed studies show that postbiotics produced mainly via fermentation with selected lactic acid bacteria and subsequently stabilized, most often by freeze-drying, exhibit pronounced antimicrobial activity in diverse food matrices, particularly meat and dairy products. Their ability to inhibit the growth of major foodborne pathogens, such as