Beet or cane molasses are the main substrate used in yeast production plants. These materials were selected for two main reasons: first, yeasts grow very well using the sugars present in the molasses and second, they are economically interesting since they are a waste product coming from sugar refineries without any other application. Usually, molasses contain between 65% and 75% of sugars, mainly sucrose (Hongisto and Laakso, 1978); but the composition is highly variable depending on the sucrose-refining procedure and on the weather conditions of that particular year. Sucrose is extracellularly hydrolysed by yeasts in two monosaccharides, glucose and fructose, which are transported to and incorporated into the yeast metabolism as carbon sources. However, molasses are deficient in other essential elements for yeast growth. One of them is nitrogen since its molasses content is very poor (less than 3%). Yeasts can use some of the amino acids present in molasses, but addition of nitrogen sources is needed, generally in the form of ammonium salts or urea. Magnesium and phosphate elements are also supplemented in salt forms. Finally, three vitamins (biotin, thiamine and pantothenic acid), required for fast growth, must be supplemented since their content in molasses is also very low (Oura, 1974; Woehrer and Roehr, 1981). Another negative aspect of molasses being used as a substrate to produce yeasts is the presence of different toxics that can affect yeast growth. Variable amounts of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers and heavy metals applied to beet or cane crops can be found in molasses and in different stocks. Moreover bactericides, which are added during sugar production in refinery plants, can be found (Reed and Nagodawithana, 1988). All these toxics can decrease yeast performance by inhibiting growth (Perez-Torrado, 2004). In fact, a common practice in yeast plants is to mix different stocks to dilute potential toxics.

The effects of molasses composition on yeast growth have been recently analysed at molecular level by determining the transcriptional profile of yeast growing in beet molasses and by comparing it to complete synthetic media (Shima et al., 2005). The results revealed that yeast displays clear gene expression responses when grown in industrial media because of the induction of FDH1 and FDH2 genes to detoxify formate and the SUL1 expression as a response to low sulphate levels. Thus it can be concluded that molasses are far from being an optimal substrate for yeast growth. Another interesting conclusion drawn is that molecular approaches can be especially suited to gain insight into the yeast biomass production process.

In the last years, the price of molasses has increased because of their use in other industrial applications such as animal feeding or bioethanol production (Arshad et al., 2008; Kopsahelis et al. 2009; Xande et al., 2010), thus rendering the evaluation of new substrates for yeast biomass propagation a trend topic for biomass producers’ research. New assayed substrates include molasses mixtures with corn steep liquor (20:80), different agricultural waste products (Vu and Kim, 2009) and other possibilities as date juice (Beiroti and Hosseini, 2007) or agricultural waste sources, also called wood molasses, that can be substrate only for yeast species capable of using xylose as a carbon source.