Who is Andris Lagsdin?
The founder and inventor behind Baking Steel, whose culinary background and family connection to steel manufacturing led to a new way of making pizza at home.
From professional kitchens to steel manufacturing
Andris Lagsdin brings two worlds together: cooking and steel. Before Baking Steel, he worked in professional kitchens, including with chef Todd English, while his family operated a steel manufacturing business. That unusual combination gave him both the practical cooking problem and the manufacturing knowledge needed to experiment with steel in a home oven. The result was Baking Steel: a steel baking surface designed to transfer heat rapidly and help home cooks produce better pizza and bread.
The timeline
2011
Andris begins experimenting with steel in his home oven
2012
Baking Steel launches on Kickstarter
Today
Continued work in cooking, education, products, and entrepreneurship