Nutritional requirements of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) are fastidious, culture media have to be supplemented with various peptide sources and growth factors. Many supplementations have been tested such as corn steep liquor, malt sprout extract, casein hydrolysates (Huja- nen & Linko 1996), but the most eective appeared to be yeast extract (Aeschlimann & Von Stockar 1990). However, the cost of the latter is its main drawback. To reduce costs, some recent works have demonstrated that lactic yeast autolysate could be used instead of the yeast extract (Amrane & Prigent 1993). In this process, lactic yeast was cultivated on whey supplemented with ammonia and some inorganic compounds, and then autolysed; the supernatant autolysate was then used as supplement in the culture medium for lactic acid bacteria.