Culture conditions for the generation of products using yeast have been optimized for fermentative processes in industry involving predominantly submerged medium (SmF). However, solid-state fermentation (SSF) is now a realistic alternative system for the production of recombinant proteins and metabolites of interest in the market, with great potential in biofuels production, food, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. One of the main advantages of SSF over SmF is the reduction of downstream expenses. Also, the use of artificial and very cheap solid supports for yeast SSF such as polyurethane foam or amberlite helps with study of the physiology of such systems. This mini-review makes an overview of previous research and emphasizes the major physiological advantages of yeast SSF that can be used for new processes and product development and stresses the need for integrated approaches between adaptive evolution and high-throughput genetic analysis. (c) 2015 Society of Chemical Industry