Lara Schütz to Lead Sensory Analysis Masterclass at World Bakers Summit 2026
Bakery professionals will have the opportunity to explore how sensory evaluation can become a practical tool for product development, quality control and collaboration between teams during a dedicated masterclass led by Lara Schütz at World Bakers Summit 2026.
A master baker, international bakery consultant and the first Romanian bread sommelier, Schütz focuses on bringing structured sensory analysis into the everyday work of bakeries. Her session will be relevant to professionals working across production, research and development, quality assurance, marketing, sales and management, showing how a shared sensory language can support clearer decisions and more consistent products.
The masterclass will form part of the first World Bakers Summit, taking place from September 15 to 17, 2026, at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bucharest. The event will bring together bakery manufacturers, retailers, hospitality professionals, ingredient suppliers and technology providers from across Central and Eastern Europe.
Participants can register to attend the Summit and the masterclass through worldbakerssummit.com, where further information about the agenda, confirmed speakers and participation options is available.
Below, Lara Schütz explains what participants can expect from the session titled “Sensory Analysis as a Professional Tool in the Bakery: Integrating Perception into Technology and Team Culture”:
Sensory analysis is often treated as the final, subjective step in product evaluation, but it can also be a powerful professional tool for product development, quality control, process optimization and, often disregarded, internal communication.
This masterclass explores how bakeries can transform individual perception into structured, useful information. Participants will learn how to move beyond vague judgments such as “good,” “rustic,” “aromatic” or “too hard” and develop a more precise language for describing aroma, taste, texture, mouthfeel and aftertaste. Particular attention will be given to sensory terms that are frequently confused, such as crisp and hard, moist and gummy, sour and fermented, or toasted and burnt.
The session will also examine the role of a shared sensory vocabulary in creating better communication between production, product development, quality assurance, marketing, sales and management. When teams use the same words differently, product decisions become slower, less precise and more dependent on personal opinion. A common sensory language helps translate consumer experience into technological questions and measurable production goals.
In the age of artificial intelligence, precise human observation becomes even more important. AI can organize data, compare reports and identify recurring patterns, but it cannot compensate (yet) for vague or poorly defined sensory input.
Through practical examples and tasting exercises, participants will discover how sensory analysis can become part of everyday bakery culture, not as an abstract or elitist discipline, but as a shared method for noticing, describing, discussing and improving products.
Organized by World Bakers, powered by European Baker & Biscuit, and supported by Progresiv, Trends HRB and Frozen Food Europe, the event is also backed by an expanding group of industry partners, including Grupo Bimbo as Main Partner; Pakmaya, Lantmännen Unibake and Puratos as Platinum Partners; Nutella as Gold Partner; 5 to go as Coffee Partner; AD Production as Solutions Partner; the Polish Investment and Trade Agency, the Hellenic Romanian Bilateral Chamber of Commerce and the Council of Slovak Exporters as Community Partners; and Arta Albă and All Retail as Media Partners.
