The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of thephysicochemical characteristics of the cold meat wastewaterand the adaptation of biomass in a batch reactor on the perfor-mance of an anaerobic upflow filter. The presence of nutrientsin the wastewater will avoid the addition of external chemi-cals to maintain the stability and performance of the biologicalprocess; and the previous adaptation of biomass will permitthe reduction of time in the start-up and stabilization periodsof the UAF.