tri-sodium citrate and sodium succinate were also insignificant; were negative in terms of their effect, and were eliminated. Date juice was significant at 99.99% level and produced 16.86 g/l lactic acid, which was the highest among all the 15 components. Comparison of these components for the lactic acid production in Plackett–Burman design showed that trial number 15 showed maximum lactic acid production as compared to the other trials