The purpose of ASB’s Product Development Competition is to facilitate the development of innovative bakery products for the wholesale manufacturing industry.
The 2025 Product Development Competition is sponsored by the National Honey Board.
Entries are due each November. Visit the following tabs for complete details.
Theme:
Busy Bees – Create a new, innovative, bakery food product for the grab-and-go market, featuring honey as the first sugar ingredient.
Entry Requirements:
Key Ingredient: Honey must be a highlighted ingredient.
Base Ingredient(s): Products should be made using a grain or pseudo-grain flour (also including pulse and legume flours). The product should start as dough or batter before being cooked into its final form.
Grab-and-go Ready: Suitable for sale in quick service restaurants, convenience stores, grocery store end caps, drive-thrus, or similar establishments.
Shelf Life: The product must have a minimum shelf life of 14 days.
All serving sizes, claims, and labeling must be in line with the current FDA and/or USDA regulations.
Guidelines:
Judges will be evaluating the potential success of product entries in today’s market, scalability, and technical problem-solving skills used in product development.
In order to control the emphasis and fairness of the competition, the following limitations will be enforced:
Each student team member must be registered as a full-time student at the university he or she is representing at the time of the competition and through the Finals on February 18, 2025. Each student on the team must provide a letter from their advisor stating that they are currently enrolled and taking classes.
All students entering the competition must be a registered ASB member (student membership is $25). Student registration can be completed on the ASB website (www.asbe.org). For more information regarding membership, please contact membership@asbe.org.
Entries must be the student’s original work. Professors may be consulted and referenced but may not be a major contributor to the actual work.
You must attend a school within the mainland US.
Projects from product development classes are eligible in the competition.
MS, Ph.D., or summer internship related projects are NOT eligible in the competition.
Only email submissions will be accepted. Please submit all emails to ASB Director of Education Sarah Day (sday@asbe.org). Entrants must include the following information in the same email:
Email body:
Attachments:
Failure to forward the above information will result in ineligibility. An acknowledgement email will be sent.
Teams must submit their preliminary proposal electronically in PDF format and supplementary information by email to Sarah Day (sday@asbe.org) by November 8th at 11:59pm CST. Proposals received after November 8th will not be accepted.
The report must be typed, double-spaced 12-point Garamond font with 1” margins. It must be submitted electronically. Use your creativity to format this proposal in a way that showcases your product’s unique attributes and market position.
Do not include the name of the university or the team names anywhere in the preliminary proposal PDF. Names of sponsor companies, any university, students, or other indication of team location are NOT acceptable in the report, or on the product picture as these will be seen by the judges. VIOLATION WILL RESULT IN DISQUALIFICATION OF SUBMITTED PROPOSALS.
Additional images throughout the report are optional but will count toward the total page count.
Scoring will be determined by the Product Development Committee. Each entry will be scored on a basis of 100 points, with the points to be distributed as shown here:
Product Description 10 points
Process Description including scale up 15 points
Technical Problem Solving 20 points
Food Safety/Shelf Life 15 points
Originality 20 points
Literature/trend data 10 points
Marketing 10 points
100 points total
The Product Development Competition Committee will select a maximum of three (3) finalists.
All competing teams will be informed of only their respective scores and any Product Development Committee’s comments.
Finalists will be announced on November 22, 2024. All team leaders will receive an email informing them of their competition status.
Responsibilities of finalists include the preparation of the following, with details below:
Finalists will be scored on a basis of 300 points, distributed as follows:
Final Written Proposal 75 points
Promotional Video 25 points
Live Presentation 75 points
Poster Display 25 points
Product Sample 100 points
The maximum number of pages for the final written proposal is ten (10). This number INCLUDES proposal body text, process flow diagram, references and appendices. It does NOT include the one (1) title page and the one (1) photograph page.
The report must be typed, double-spaced, 12-point Garamond font with 1” margins on white paper. Must be submitted electronically as a PDF.
The title page, for which there is no specific required format, must include the title of the proposal and date. A list of donors, and other contributors that assisted the team should be listed ONLY on the title page.
Insert a color photograph of the product on a single sheet of the report. This page does not count as part of the 10 pages. Additional images throughout the report are optional and will count as part of the 10-page report.
References should be added at the end of the proposal. The teams’ anonymity is no longer required.
Product Description 15 points
Originality 10 points
Process Description 20 points
Safety/Shelf Life 10 points
Profitability 10 points
Marketing 10 points
Final Written Proposal Evaluation: 75 points total
Areas that may be covered in the final proposal are listed below. These are only suggestions. You may include other areas. Remember, thoroughness is important, but originality is highly encouraged! Be sure to cover all areas according to the allotted written proposal points above.
Product description/use
Product formulation and ingredient functionality
Market potential
Competitive framework
Sensory/ Consumer tests
Shelf-life estimation
Price/cost evaluation
Package selection and basis for selection
Nutrition Label
Process description and basis for selection
How product would be scaled for industrial production
Process flow diagram
Process limits
Operating cost
Capital investment estimate
Patent status (apply, infringe, license)
Food Safety evaluation with respect to formulations, functionality, and processing
Legal implications of the product (ingredient labeling)
Hazard Analysis – Critical Control Points (HACCP)
Good Manufacturing Processes (GMPs)
Home use – safety hazard?
State Regulations
Federal Regulations
FDA, USDA, OSHA, EPA, etc. regulations
Finalists will develop a one (1) minute promotional video that will be posted on the ASB website and social media pages. The video will also be used as an introduction to the on-stage presentation at BakingTECH 2025 conference and should be an exciting, engaging and informative video that captures the essence and uniqueness of your product.
This is not enough time to go over everything included in the written summary, so use the video as a way to succinctly sell your product’s key attributes. It will be judged on quality, communication, visual appeal, intrigue, and overall quality of presentation skills.
Video Presentation Evaluation: 25 points
Oral Presentation Evaluation: 75 points
Finalists will also present their product development ideas in a poster session at BakingTECH. The content rules for the written report also apply to the poster display.
An 8 ft. wide by 4ft. high (32 sq. ft. display area) poster board will be available for you to display your product information. The panels can be divided up however a team chooses as long as it fits the allotted poster space (4′ high × 8′ wide).
Judges will visit posters in a random order. Judges may ask questions to any or all of the team members present during this time period.
Note: Product development teams are not allowed to provide food samples to the general public at the poster session, or at any time during the Annual Meeting. Teams are encouraged to have display samples for viewing. Table-top for display purposes only.
The poster display will be graded on the effectiveness of product presentation, organization and quality of information, inclusion of process description, and ability of the poster and team to sell the product idea to fellow bakers.
Poster Display Evaluation: 25 points
Each team will send each judge (3 judges total) one sample of their product shipped by Friday January 24, 2025. The names and addresses of the judges will be provided mid-December.
Product Sample Evaluation: 100 Points
Each team will have an online Q&A session with the judges in early February. The exact time will be communicated in mid-December. Each member of the team is required to participate. Each team will be allocated 15 minutes.
This is a compulsory, but not scored, part of the final to allow judges to introduce themselves and ask clarifying questions based on the product and processes.
BakingTECH 2025 is February 15 – 18 2025 at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld. Travel and meal expenses will be paid for the Finalists.
Items to be completed for entry in Product Development Competition:
Items to be completed for Product Development Competition Finalists:
Failure to comply with any of the rules of the competition may result in penalization of teams, including disqualification at the discretion of the judges and the competition Chair.
Awards – $20,000 in total
1st prize: $2,500 scholarship for each team member
2nd prize: $1,500 scholarship for each team member
3rd prize: $1,000 scholarship for each team member
Winners will be announced during BakingTECH on Tuesday, February 18, 2025. All Finalist team members must be present.
Questions can be sent to ASB Director of Education Sarah Day (sday@asbe.org).
They will then be forwarded to the Product Development Committee for a response.
Member Since 2019
Scientist, R&D
Impossible Foods
As a Food Science PhD student at the University of Florida, one day my colleague introduced us to the Product Development Competition. From there on we went as finalists to BakingTech. It gave us a perfect platform to expose ourselves to the industry and was the most inviting and inclusive food conference in the USA by far. BakingTECH was a place to learn everything about baking, network, and create connections that I am still grateful for.