Both lactic acid productivity and cell growth were linearly correlated with yeast extract supplementation in batch fermentation. During conventional continuous operation, although fresh feed was introduced into the bioreactor with a significantly low dilution rate (0.04 $h^{-1}$), the amount of yeast extract employed was not enough to maintain the growth of microorganism. However, when the fresh feed contained 100 g/l glucose and 2 g/l yeast extract during cell-recycle continuous operation at a dilution rate of 0.04 $h^{-1}$, more than 90 g/l lactic acid was continuously produced, with the average productivity of 3.72 $g/l{cdot}h$. In this experiment, 82 g of yeast extract (77% of reduction yield) could be reduced for the production of 1 kg of lactic acid compared with batch fermentation of a similar volumetric productivity.