The American Society of Baking (ASB) has announced the three finalist teams for its annual Product Development Competition (PDC). Showcasing academic excellence and innovation in the baking industry, the finalists hail from Cornell University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Oregon State University.  

ASB’s Product Development Competition, now in its 11^th year, has gifted over $200,000 in scholarships to the next generation of baking talent since the competition’s inception. The competition is designed to help food science students gain exposure and showcase their innovative products to industry experts by designing a new product based on a specified brief.  After a rigorous evaluation process, the 2025 finalist teams were selected by a panel that assessed their proposals on key criteria, including product and process descriptions, technical problem-solving, food safety, and shelf life, with support from literature and market trend data.  

This year’s competition, sponsored by the National Honey Board, challenged teams to develop an innovative grab-and-go product featuring honey as the primary sugar ingredient. Cornell University developed prOATS!, University of Massachusetts Amherst will present HoneyCrunch, and Oregon State University will debut Garden Box Cookies.    

The three teams will compete for a share of the $20,000 scholarship prize pot, with winners announced during the finals at BakingTECH 2025, hosted in Orlando, FL, from February 15–18, 2025. The teams will spend the next few months writing a robust final report and preparing samples for the judges to taste test.   

At BakingTECH 2025, the finalists will present their innovative products on the main stage to attendees and a distinguished panel of industry judges during the Future Forward Luncheon, to be held on Monday, February 17. Students will then display a poster in the reimagined Formulation Floor experience, which features an expanded "Student & Faculty Poster Session" in 2025 to showcase innovation and the next generation of talent in the baked goods sector, including snacks and healthy alternatives.  

Devanshu Mehta, current PDC committee chair and a member of the winning team in 2022, says: “The competition provides a prestigious platform for these rising stars to engage directly with industry leaders and showcase fresh ideas, creating "real world" product concepts that push the boundaries of baking science and technology.”  

For more information about the Product Development Competition, click here. To learn more about BakingTECH 2025, visit here.

Related: University of Florida team triumphs in 2024 ASB Product Development Competition