The use of enzymes in the food industry allows the improvement of the manufacture and quality of the products. To date, enzymes have not been widely used in the meat industry. To permit a further study of the role and application of cathepsins, a purification process of cathepsins B, D and L from porcine cardiac muscle has been developed. The protocol applied was: extraction of enzyme from porcine cardiac muscle, using 3% NaCl, 15 mM HCl; and ammonium sulfate fractionation and a subsequent purification by gel filtration, ultrafiltration and ion exchange. This easy to scale‐up procedure, which may permit the application of the purified enzymes as food additives, made it possible to obtain cathepsins B, L and D separately, with a recovery of 21.60%, 18.24% and 3.68% respectively. The degree of purity was 29.84 and 8.32 for cathepsin B and cathepsin L respectively.