Background: The escalating demand for animal-derived sustenance has underscored the imperative to safeguard its safety. Common contaminants in animal-derived food, such as pesticides, veterinary drugs, and foodborne pathogens, have the potential to inflict considerable harm on food safety and human health. Consequently, the development of rapid detection methods for these contaminants assumes paramount significance in ensuring the safety of animal-derived food. Scope and approach: This review introduces the sensing mechanisms and classification of magnetic relaxation switching (MRS) biosensors, providing a comprehensive overview of their recent applications in the analysis of animal-derived food safety. Especially, the detection principle and performance of MRS biosensors in animalderived food hazards are highlighted. Additionally, the challenges and futuristic opportunities faced by MRS biosensors are addressed, offering valuable insights for the development of advanced MRS biosensors. Key findings and conclusions: MRS methods have been extensively exploited in animal-derived food safety detection and demonstrated profound performance in terms of detection sensitivity, selectivity, and practicability in complex food matrices. Furthermore, ongoing developments in portable detection instruments, novel sensing principles, and cascaded signal amplification of MRS biosensors are expected to enable on-site, multiplexed detection.