Perhaps the most notable property of ALG is that paired guluronic units are able to accommodate divalent ions (e.g., calcium, copper, strontium, barium, etc.), enabling the formation of hydrogel beads, with few mm in diameter and large internal pores (150-400 µm). While the application of these porous beads in the food, biomedical, or pharmaceutical industries is already established, several groups have recently explored the possibility to used them as sorbents materials for solid phase extraction. An even less explored field is the possibility to use alginate beads as a biosensing platform. The main problem limiting this application is that although the porous structure of the material allows proteins and other components to adsorb on (or penetrate into) the beads, these water-soluble molecules can also be released by either simple diffusion or triggered by the sample matrix (pH changes, ionic strength, etc.). Aiming to control the kinetics of the release process, several approaches have been proposed including adjusting the concentration of the components, adding sorbent particles, encapsulating the beads within hydrophobic materials (wax), forming composites with other polymers, and modifying the native functional groups (-OH and -COOH) of the alginate. In addition, and albeit not targeting biosensing applications, a few groups have recently reported the possibility to synthetize beads mixing the alginate solution with deep eutectic solvents (DES). These DES (mixtures of two or more pure compounds for which the eutectic temperature is below that of the ideal liquid mixture) can not only be made with natural molecules (acids, sugars, alcohols, etc.) but can also open the door to unique modifications (polarity, vapor pressure, viscosity, etc.) to the system. In this sense, polymeric deep eutectic solvents, also known as PODES, are a new and interesting family of materials that combine characteristics from polymers with the traditional advantages of DES, enabling the formation of a stable phase supported by the hydrogen-bond network. Thus, and considering the capacity of DES to stabilize enzymes, the main objective of this work was to design and fabricate a new PODES using ALG as one of the components (ALGPODES). The hypothesis behind the project was that the new ALGPODES would enable the formation of beads. This stable network would in turn, provide a new phase to preserve the activity of the biorecognition elements and retain other molecules of interest (chromogenic agents), thus supporting their use towards the development of colorimetric biosensors. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, a new PODES (composed of alginate, glycerol, and water; referred to as ALGPODES) was developed and then used to form beads (in the presence of calcium ions), which were then morphologically characterized and compared against ALG beads in terms of their capacity to retain the selected redox indicators and stabilize the selected enzymes. The suitability of the ALGPODES beads towards the development of colorimetric sensors for glucose, lactate and glutamate was also assessed and its applicability demonstrated with real food samples (oyster and soy sauces). We believe this platform (lab-on-a-bead) provides a new analytical paradigm, where a handful of beads (sensors) can be added to a sample; instead of adding the sample to the sensor.