Fig. 3 also shows that concentration of lactate is maximized near 58 g lactate L−1, corresponding with a productivity of 1.9 g lactate L−1h−1(uncorrected for NaOH dilution). These results are similar to other food waste digestions, which did not use specific cultured strains and achieved 49 to 56 g lactate L−1[11,12].The leveling of the lactate concentration as the substrate concentration is increased, in addition to the observation of previous work,likely indicates the influence of product inhibition. The maximum concentration of lactate obtained corresponds with the loading of the maximum concentrations of food waste (i.e. undiluted food). In agreement with prior work, this confirms that digestion to lactate is stable when the substrate is in concentrated form [12]. The high concentration also demonstrates the economic potential of lactate production from food waste; the 64.6 million tonnes of food wasted annually in the United States ( pre- and post-consumer), has the potential of fulfilling 94% of U.S. lactate demand and generating 3.8 Billion USD of lactate [1,2,7].