Industry News

Yeast is a kind of single-celled microorganism which belongs to fungi.Yeast is mainly used in the fields of fermented pasta, baked food, wine making, animal nutrition and seasoning.In terms of product form, yeast is divided into fresh yeast and active dry yeast (the ratio of dry and fresh yeast to weight is 1:3).

Among them, the cell content is more than 20 billion cfu/g, and the active dry yeast with water content less than 6% is called high active dry yeast.High active dry yeast has the advantages of low water content, fast rehydration, long storage time and easy to use.

The yeast industry is a mature and concentrated industry in the world. The global annual yeast production is about 3.5 million tons, of which the high-active dry yeast is about 1.2 million tons.About 300 yeast manufacturers worldwide.The top five companies account for 70 per cent of the market.France's Lesaffre has 25 yeast plants worldwide, producing more than 200,000 tonnes of active dry yeast a year.Australia's mauri (bought by ABF), the Netherlands' gist brocde and others all produce more than 100,000 tonnes a year.

What is the market potential of Chinese yeast?In theory, China consumes about 50 million tons of wheat flour annually. If 50% is used for fermented food (bread, steamed bread), then the amount of fermented wheat flour will be 25 million tons, which is calculated according to the proportion of yeast consumption around 0.6% (bread is 0.8-1.2%, steamed bread is 0.3-0.5%), and 150,000 tons of highly active dry yeast is needed.

The annual output of feed in China is about 10,000,000 tons, with the addition ratio of 0.1% to 0.5%, and the yeast needs to be 100,000 tons.

In addition, about 0.5m tons of yeast, yeast extract and medicinal yeast are needed for brewing.Therefore, the potential market demand of Chinese yeast is about 250,000 to 270,000 tons.In addition, with the improvement of people's living standards and the acceleration of life pace, the consumption of bread continues to increase, and the fast and convenient yeast will gradually replace the self-leavened yeast, and the potential demand of yeast will gradually release.At the same time, China's yeast exports have continued to grow due to cost and environmental advantages.

But the release of potential demand takes time, especially for yeast added to feed.China's yeast production was about 85,000 tons in 2006.Among them, export is 26,700 tons (import is 0.09 million tons), domestic consumption is about 60,000 tons and the market size is about 1.2 billion yuan.

China has about 18 yeast production plants with an annual capacity of about 100,000 tons.Among them, angel yeast, marley and saf have 12 factories with a production capacity of 82%, showing a high degree of industrial concentration.Market competition is also focused on the oligopoly between angel yeast and two joint ventures - marley and lucerf.Therefore, the yeast industry market competition is fierce but not cruel.The price change of the leading enterprise has certain leading effect on the price trend of the industry.

In recent years, leading enterprises in the yeast industry have been expanding their production. In the short term, China's yeast production capacity will exceed the market demand, and the yeast industry competition is expected to increase.