Just wondering about Yeast ?

[Satellitemark]

Presuming that the costs for growing , storage , packaging , distribution, etc are similar if not identical and bread and beer are manufactured is massive quantities daily does anyone have any idea why I can buy 125g of bread yeast for £1 yet 10g of beer yeast costs at least treble that ?

I just can't think of a sensible reason, don't get me wrong for what the beer yeast produces I'm happy to pay it , but I can't figure out

 

[Leon103]

More people are making bread then brewing beer.
You need to remember the big bakeries and breweries reuse yeast and not buy new for each batch.

 

[Satellitemark]

Isn't reusing yeast what the yeast sellers also do ?

I can understand some economies of scale but bread yeast works out about 12p for 10g compared to around £3 or more for 10g of beer /ale yeast.

 

[strange-steve]

I'm only guessing here but might it be something to do with manufacturing/purity standards? I'm not a baker, but I imagine it's not as critical for bread yeast to be purely single strain and bacteria free as it is for brewing yeast.

 

[Satellitemark]

Could be Steve, the difference seems excessive, but who knows !

 

[Drunkula]

How many variants of bread yeast are shops selling? When I see bread recipes I don't see underneath "Yeast choices : WLP Allinsons Fast Yeast / Aldi Labs 5x7g.

The sheer number of yeasts means there isn't the scale of market. White Labs advertise on podcasts and say they'll go to the effort of culturing up a yeast strain if X amount of people pre- order it or a brewer wants 1.5 litres.

So yeah. hundreds of yeast types used in relatively small amounts for brewing that get reused and even propagaged vs some stuff in a tin or sludge that is constantly consumed in a fiery swansong contained in a cromulentious crust.

EDIT: Oh balls - I've been tricked! I purposely try to subvert threads without a definitive question in the title. I had too many tabs open today, friend, and you are the victor. I am beaten.

 

[Satellitemark]

That makes sense, as far as I know with baker's yeast you can choose a brand but not a strain.

 

[Joust]

Things rarely sell for what they are worth. Rather they sell for what people will pay.

 

[Cestrian]

I used to work with AB Mauri in Hull, who make yeast for the bakery industry. This is on an industrial scale. When they start a new batch they have to scale things up the same as we do. They start with a slant in the lab, then a flask in a fume cupboard, but they end up with two 100m3 vessels that are continually agitated. Alcohol level and dissolved oxygen levels are monitored and oxygen is blown in and feed rate of glucose & molasses is adjusted to maintain perfect conditions for growth.
The final product is sold in 27 tonne batches in road tankers or in pallets of 20kg slabs. They also supply yeast to the whisky industry in Scotland. This is a picture of a slab. This is a bag of wet yeast slurry, but very dense like a cake which is kept refrigerated.

so for me it is all about economies of scale. The batches white labs are producing are much smaller and a much wider variety.

 

[GerritT]

Packaging and distribution is relatively high for small packages. I wouldn't be surprised if the production cost for the yeast was about 2 pence per gram.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Presuming that the costs for growing , storage , packaging , distribution, etc are similar if not identical and bread and beer are manufactured is massive quantities daily does anyone have any idea why I can buy 125g of bread yeast for £1 yet 10g of beer yeast costs at least treble that ?

I just can't think of a sensible reason, don't get me wrong for what the beer yeast produces I'm happy to pay it , but I can't figure out

There's a big difference between beer and bread making - you can harvest yeast at the end of brewing so most big breweries are self-sufficient in yeast, whereas bakeries are consumers of yeast so most buy it in. IIRC Lallemand make 50 batches of baking yeast for every one batch of brewing yeast.

So there's a big difference in scale of production.

Packaging - small packs cost more. Just look at bread yeast in the shops, typically you can buy 6x7g or 8x7g (ie 42g or 56g) in foil packs for the same price as a tin of 100g or 56g. Dry brewing yeast generally comes in foil packs.

Distribution is different too - supermarkets work on brutally small margins compared to niche retailers. For instance if you get your dry baking yeast from an online "craft" retailers, you might pay £2.50 for 5x9g baking yeast.

Tax is also different - you pay 20% VAT on anything packed for retail homebrewers, whereas basic food ingredients are zero-rated.

Then you have the logistics of having a stock of multiple strains - and there's also quite a lot of R&D spend going into new dry yeasts.

And yes, there's also the question of different markets being able to tolerate different prices - homebrew is competing against heavily taxed commercial beer so all ingredients seem "cheap" in comparison, whereas home-made bread almost always comes out more expensive than the commercial equivalents.

 

[Satellitemark]

Interesting stuff, massive difference in scale and a even more massive difference in price.
Like I said in the original post I think brewing yeast is worth the cost due to the end product we end up with.

Now I was just wondering about the cost of brewing sodium percarbonate, verses the cost of identical oxy active cleaner !

Mark