Spent brewer's yeast – a source of β-glucan for various purposes

Spent brewer's yeast, a by-product of beer production, could be used as a raw-material for isolation of β-glucan. In spite of the fact that large quantities of brewer's yeast are used as feed, certain quantities are still treated as waste. β-Glucans are compounds that can achieve a greater commercial value than the brewer's yeast itself. Among various compounds that can be isolated from yeast, β-glucans are products that can be used as multipurpose ingredient and achieve a high price on the market. In addition of their immunostimulatory activity that makes them suitable for application in human and veterinary medicine, β-glucans can find application in pharmaceutical and chemical industries, food and feed production, as well as in production of cosmetics. Therefore, production of β-glucans, which have huge application potential, is suggested as an attempt to solve the problem of spent brewer's yeast.