Production and Comparison of Indigenous and Commercial Baker’s Yeasts

89 Introduction Baker’s yeast is used to leaven bread throughout the world and it is the type of yeast that people are most familiar with1-2. Commercial baker’s yeasts (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) are mostly used for the fermentation of modern bread making3. These yeast products contain almost 5% contaminating lactic bacteria and these bacteria play an important role in the production of flavour quality breads4-5. Today, in this first decade of the 21st century, baker’s yeast is produced in worldwide quantities of 2.3 million tons per annum6.