Andris Lagsdin was inspired to create Baking Steel after reading about how steel conducts and stores heat well for baking pizza at home. He experimented by making pizza on steel from his family's steel plant and was impressed with the results. He launched Baking Steel on Kickstarter, exceeding his funding goal. The product was a success, partnering with retailers like Sur La Table and gaining praise from food reviewers. Baking Steel continues to grow and partner with companies like Modernist Cuisine to develop new products using Lagsdin's access and knowledge from the steel industry.

1. 28 Cape & Plymouth Business | January 2014 | capeplymouthbusiness.com
passion for food
together, open-
ing test kitch-
ens in Seattle to
study food and
how it changes
during the cook-
ing process.
“In that
book,” Lagsdin
says, “it talked
about how do
you make pizza
at home? We all
have that chal-
lenge with tra-
ditional pizza
stones. What
intrigued me is
that he said we
all know that
steel conducts
heat very well,
but it also stores
energy very well.
Once it gets hot,
it’s going to stay
hot.” Lagsdin, a pizza fanatic, was charged by
this serendipitous news. “So I was reading that,
and I’m thinking, are you kidding me? So I run
out to my plant, having a steel background,
grabbed some steel that we used for Caterpillar
parts. I brought it home that week and made
some dough and made some pizza on it, and I
was blown away by the results.”
Lagsdin describes the cooking-on-steel pro-
cess: “What happens is once that steel gets up
to temperature, that steel stores that energy, the
heat from the oven all goes into that steel and
when you put your dough on it, it pops off, if
you will. It creates oven spring and charring.”
In other words, says Lagsdin, steel stores energy
18 times better than stone, and this is good for
pizza and breads. The seed of invention had
been planted with this early prototype.
Kick-starting Baking Steel
Even though Lagsdin’s first draft worked very
well, there was still work to do before he had a
product. Fortunately, Lagsdin just happened
to have access to a fully operating steel produc-
tion plant. It meant that, unlike many other
entrepreneurs, Lagsdin wasn’t looking for inves-
tors – he already had his means of production.
“Our business story is great because we had a
million dollars’ worth of equipment that could
produce this Baking Steel, so it didn’t require
any major investments.” Despite having the
ability to launch the startup without requiring
investors, priming the operation was still a team
effort – one
that benefitted
from already
having a well-
oiled machine
in place. “My
brother was
instrumental in
the back end of
things, organiz-
ing our plant,
trying to get a
new product
out the door.”
About six
months later,
Lagsdin had
his Baking
Steel packaged
and ready to
go. However,
marketing the
product became
a bigger ques-
tion than how
to produce it.
“It came time
to flip the switch and we’re like, God, how in
the world is anyone going to see our website?”
While Lagsdin had already decided he didn’t
require traditional investors to launch his prod-
uct, he realized he needed to do something to
get the product in the public eye, to create some
buzz, and to sell some preorders.
“My initial gut was that I don’t need inves-
tors in my company, but Kickstarter doesn’t
work that way – it’s basically finding micro-
investors, and the micro-investors basically pre-
order your product.” Baking Steel was accepted
into Kickstarter and Lagsdin set the modest goal
of $3,000 – just enough to create some buzz
and sell some units. Twenty-four hours later,
this goal had already been reached and, by Sep.
1, 2012, 472 backers had pledged over $38,000
to the startup.
“During this time, a lot of crowdsourcing
people were seeing this, they were contact-
ing me, they wanted samples,” says Lagsdin.
Prominent food bloggers began to reach out,
notably Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats. “He
tried out my product and got back to me. He
said, ‘Andris, this thing blows away any stone
I’ve used. It’s probably the best home pizza
product I’ve ever tested.’” Shortly after López-
Alt reviewed Baking Steel, Lagsdin’s Kickstarter
surged from about $17,000 to the over $38,000
the Kickstarter project closed with. “It’s been
crazy ever since. This is our first full year in busi-
ness doing this,” says Lagsdin.
FeatUreStory
Baking Steel heats up
By Alex Johnson
Perhaps the purest manifestation of the entre-
preneurial spirit is when an entrepreneur is
able to return to his or her roots in order to
pursue their passion on their own terms. Andris
Lagsdin, owner of Baking Steel, has been doing
just that with his revolutionary – and elegantly
simple – kitchen invention.
For Lagsdin, it all started with a love of the
culinary arts that began over 15 years ago. “I
studied culinary arts, I worked in restaurants,
you know, in my younger life, that’s all I did.”
But the restaurant industry is a notoriously
tough one, and sacrificing nights and weekends,
and life in general, wore thin for Lagsdin.
“My last stop was with Todd English in
Boston,” says Lagsdin of time spent working
under the celebrity chef. After this, Lagsdin
left the food industry behind to work for
the Hanover-based Stoughton Steel Company,
started by his father in 1974. “I left there and
came to work with my dad’s business, which
was growing at the time.” Stoughton Steel
Company designs and manufactures products
for large construction equipment companies,
and Andris continues to work there today,
as Vice President, as well as being founder of
Baking Steel.
Always a foodie at heart
Though Lagsdin had made a switch from the
culinary to steel industries, he never left his past
behind. “I’ve always been a foodie, even though
I left the restaurant business and came to work at
Stoughton Steel Company. I’ve always stuck my
nose in cooking.” Lagsdin’s passion for cooking,
and particularly for making homemade pizzas,
continued unabated, and was even strengthened
by the inspiration he found in a book.
“I was reading about the launch of a book
called Modernist Cuisine in The Wall Street
Journal. What intrigued me about the book
is that it was really one of the first of its kind
to study the art and science of cooking like
nobody else ever has.” Lagsdin was inspired by
author and former Microsoft CTO Dr. Nathan
Myhrvold’s scientific approach to understand-
ing the cooking process. Myhrvold, having left
Microsoft, brought his own scientific skillset and
Andris Lagsdin, founder of Baking Steel

2. capeplymouthbusiness.com | January 2014 | Cape & Plymouth Business 29
And it’s been a busy first year. In addition
to receiving rave reviews and exceeding the
Kickstarter goal, Baking Steel garnered the
attention of national kitchenware retailer Sur
La Table. “They were contacting me to have
me sell Baking Steel to them, and I was reluc-
tant at first because I wanted to make sure we
could handle the production.” His reservations
subsided, Lagsdin signed on with Sur La Table
in June 2013, cobranding a special version of
Baking Steel for all of their stores. “It’s been
their number two seller in our category, which
is amazing,” says Lagsdin.
Coming full circle
The relationship with Sur La Table isn’t
Baking Steel’s only partnership. The team
behind the book that inspired Lagsdin’s reentry
into the professional culinary world – Modernist
Cuisine – took an interest in Baking Steel. “I’ve
been talking to them throughout this whole
process, they were really excited that one of the
readers of their book was creating a product.”
In April 2013, Baking Steel partnered with the
Modernist Cuisine team to create a cobranded
Modernist Cuisine Baking Steel. “My thoughts
were,” explains Lagsdin, “that we’re strategically
finding real solid partnerships with companies
because they help give us credibility. We spun
off bakingsteel.com on its own, away from
our main business, because we wanted to have
something very consumer friendly, because it’s a
whole different line of business for us.”
It appears to be working – the Baking Steel
brand is growing quickly, and Lagsdin’s team
has produced variations on the original design
to meet customer demand. Currently, Baking
Steel features three models of identical footprint
(14” x 16”), but varying thickness and weight.
The idea is that more thickness results in greater
stored energy. The partnership with Modernist
Cuisine and their cutting edge testing facilities
comes in handy here, as they provide extensive
testing for upcoming Baking Steel products.
“I think the future looks great for us,” says
Lagsdin. “I think we’re just scratching the
surface as far as educating people on how our
product works. We’re looking at getting into
more retail next year, we’ve been in contact
with Crate & Barrel, and we’re moving forward
with King Arthur Flour, another retailer.” A
successful launch and first year aside, it’s easy
to see that Lagsdin is excited to be firmly back
to his roots in the culinary world. “We’ve been
covered by Food & Wine Magazine, Bon Appétit
Magazine, and Men’s Health. Cooking Light
Magazine called us one of their favorite prod-
ucts of 2013.”
“The feedback we’ve had on our product is
just mind-blowing,” says Lagsdin.
arts Foundation of cape cod awards $28,000 in grants
On november 18, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod awarded grants
totaling $28,095 to 33 local artists and organizations at a recep-
tion at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in Yarmouth. In this Fall grant cycle, the Arts Foundation
received 39 applications for arts projects spanning the entire Cape. Included in the 33 projects that
received funding were the Cultural Center of Cape Cod for their ‘Rise and Shine’ program for at-
risk youth, the harwich Junior Theater to fund their touring Junior and Senior Player troupes and
the Thornton Burgess Society to establish a permanent exhibit at the Green Briar nature Center.
CapeCodCan! also received a grant for their second annual production featuring performers with
disabilities. The Community Workforce Investment Board will continue their ArtWorks program
pairing high school students with mentors.
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